All the same, the lower classes are much more pragmatic about this sort of thing; honouring your ancestors is nice and all, but putting food on the table is a great deal more important, and, well, if the way to do that is to be apprenticed in another trade(or heading to the city to work in a factory), then them's the breaks; the ancestors still got their household shrine. Similarly, while blacksmithing may be 'properly' a man's job, realistically his wife and female children can and will do what work they can around the forge, because if it fails, they'll be out on the streets as much as the men of the house. And if he should happen to die before any of the boys are of an age to take over, well. It's not like Mrs. Smith hasn't been doing weekend stints at the anvil for a decade anyhow.

That said, it's generally mmm. Understood that to really succeed in a craft at the highest levels, one does have to be of the proper bloodlines. (Tangentally 'good/bad blood will out!', a popular theme in Milanese fiction?)

3) Working With Gender Roles: Tangental to the above, Dual buisnesses are rather common in Miln - General store & Tailor, Baker & brewery - due to both partners in a marriage having traditional occupations. That said. Some occupations just don't mix well (Tanner & Tavern? Ugh), and maintaining two completely separate shops is beyond the means of most tradesmen and tradeswomen. As such, it's not terribly uncommon for them to just quietly drop the less profitable of the jobs, and have the family focus on the one that brigns in more money, gender roles be damned.

5) Classism: While everybody starts at the bottom and works their way up through a true meritocracy, let's be real here. Who You Know covers a multitude of sins in any system, and in one so focused on bloodlines...well. It wouldn't get Frank Burns to Colonel, but it might keep him at Major where he can give the rest of the MASH unit issues. The upper echelons of a given occupation are filled almost entirely by members of certain families. They all worked their way up, mind you, "doing their time" as it were, but they're still from those particular families. ("Anybody can be a doctor, but only women from these ancestral lines truly understand medicine at the highest levels.") Power is not "inherited" in a direct passing-along, but it is understood in the Upper Circles that if Surgeon General Sue's daughter finds herself qualified to make a bid for a position, she's liable to get it.

As you might imagine, this 'glass ceiling' effect is felt much more heavily by people of the 'wrong' gender, especially if they happen to also be of the wrong bloodlines - It's not so much that they're actively discriminated against, as that they need to already be exceptional to get past people's subconscious biases (and their own internal ones), and, well, given that there are rather fewer of them present to start with, and for many it was not their first choice of occupation... *shrug*

6) Rules of Propriety: It is generally seen as "improper" for unmarried ladies and gentlemen to meet with each other without escorts, the impropriety rising in proportion to one's class and inversely to one's age. As with most such things, the UC strictly observes them, the MC pays lip service and tries to observe them, and the LC largely ignores them when at all inconvenient (barring the occasional whole-hearted embrace of such concepts as 'double dates' for extra protection of everybody's virtue). Some UC are likely hesitant, even after marriage, about speaking to the opposite gender without an 'escort' present, for form's sake, if nothing else.

7) Miln's Educational System: While parish clerics have ensured that the bulk of the Litanaean population is at least functionally numerate and literate, this system has always had it's failings, not least of which being a lack of any kind of standardization. Children could be taught virtually anything, including those seditious lies about how Miln is trying to destroy Icefoxian culture, or only wishes to hold onto Estergate Island to abuse the coal deposits there.

And so, the Kaiser of three eras before – may he look kindly upon his descendants – implimented a public education system. It runs half-days for children aged five to twelve, and the subject matter is about half blatant propaganda and half glorified Home Ec, with solid literacy and numeracy present as an afterthought. Nobles being what they are, private schools are present, as well. The UC and MC who can afford such send their children off to single-gender boarding schools, some of which share a campus or town with a 'sister school', while others stand alone.

Besides helping to maintain the Empire's cultural unity, and making sure those of the common classes have basic life skills, the schools serve another purpose: To spot and cultivate talented common youths. For while accepted wisdom may be that True Talent is passed down family lines, it is difficult to deny that those from less than exalted families may at least have practical skills, and that there are never enough people of Good Breeding to fill the lower levels of an occupation, especially in these days of rapid population growth.

As such, public school teachers are actively charged to watch for exceptional talent in their wards, and when they spot such, will bring the child to the attention of either private patrons or the Office of Scholarships. And if the child continues to be both talented and lucky, well, they've won themselves a ticket for a full education and the middle class lifestyle.