Social status and marriage patterns for 104 long-term serving non-commissioned officers (NCO) that enlisted in Dalregementet 1721-1809 was analyzed.

For 31% of those analyzed, becoming a NCO was the result of social regression, for 40% it was the result of social consistency, and for 29% the result of social progression. 10% belonged to the nobility; 10% each had fathers that were respectively clergymen or bourgeois. Not less than half o the NCO studied had a social background among the ofrälse ståndspersoner (gentlemen or petty gentlemen outside the traditional four-estate system), while only 20% came from the peasantry. About a third of the NCO had fathers that were or had been military men.

The analysis of the marriage patterns shows that about one half of the marriages reveal social homogeneity, while the other half was the result of social regression on part of the groom. That is, in 50% of the marriages the father-in-law was a social equal of the groom (and of his father), while in the other 50 % of cases he did belong to a lower stratum. In about 25 % of the cases, the father-in-law was a military man. A third of the marriages were with peasants’ daughters. In the rest of the marriages the fathers-in-law had occupations within either civil service, church, commerce or mining.

The study confirms previous conclusions that NCOs belonged to a social stratum that only slightly rising above the peasantry.

A further analysis, based on probate inventories, show that the interconnection between economic position (wealth) and social stratum is not very pronounced. This is particulary distinct among the bergsmän (mine and furnace operators) that officially were classified and taxed as peasants, but whose prosperity in many cases must have been significant. Hence their daughters would have been attractive marriage partners for persons that according to conventional social classifications belonged to higher strata.