I do not by this mean, or do not only mean, a society bound together by a militaristic code of honour and propped up by a toiling mass in bondage and felt boots. I mean more generally a society which turns on a code, in which the quality of persons is measured by the extent to which they observe this code, in which there can, that is, be said to be 'persons of quality' — a society, in the familiar phrase, of 'virtue and honour'.

XREF: Connects to discussions of honor cultures and social stratification — the notion that personhood and worth are defined relationally through code-observance, echoing work on honor-shame societies and Weber's status groups. QUESTION: What exactly distinguishes this looser 'code-based' society from the militaristic honor-bound one being set aside? Where does the boundary fall?

Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking…, loc. 1528