Boxing Day: Boxed-in by poverty



Molineaux vs. Cribb

If Rocky had lived back when, he would have more likely been a Boxing-Day “welfare recipient” than a Boxing-Day hero.  That’s because Boxing Day has underlyingly been much more about duking it out between social classes than it has been about duking it out in the ring.

Consider the words to the Good King Wenceslas carol:  Good King Wenceslas looked out on the feast of Stephen (St. Stephen’s Day – the 26^th of December)…  When a poor man came in sight gath’ring winter fuel…  (Although a good, and Catholic, king - Wenceslas was probably ensconced in his castle, page at his bidding, as he contemplated the fate of the poor man out there in the “cruel frost.”  This “Saint” Wenceslas then ordered the lower-class page to bring him flesh, wine, and pine logs - which no doubt the page lugged as they took off through the winter’s night.)  The author of these lyrics, John Mason Neale (who was himself a member of an upper class), then concludes:  Therefore, Christian men be sure, wealth or rank possessing, Ye who now will bless the poor, shall yourselves find blessing.

Certainly, it is more of a blessing to give the poor a handout once a year than not to.  However, it would be way more of a blessing to truly begin to address the underlying reasons for the gaping chasm between the rich and the poor.  Instead, Boxing Day has merely served to reinforce this class distinction.

As Snopes pointed out: … equals exchanged gifts on Christmas Day or before, but lessers (be they trades people, employees, servants, serfs, or the generic “poor”) received their “boxes” on the day after.  It is to be noted that the social superiors did not receive anything back from those they played Lord Bountiful to:  a gift in return would have been seen as a presumptuous act of laying claim to equality…

Resources

http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/boxingday.asp

http://www.carols.org.uk/good_king_wenceslas.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mason_Neale

Copyright December 26, 2010 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved