ARE IDENTICAL TWINS AN “UPPER CASTE”?

ARE IDENTICAL TWINS AN “UPPER CASTE”? I am happy to proclaim myself a man of the people, and my family has noticed that I tend to say harsh things about aristocrats and status seekers. Yet I smiled at seeing an article about twins by Dionne Searcey in the Wall Street Journal (August 9) which contains the following statement by the mother of fraternal twins: “There’s a caste system for twins, and identicals are in the upper caste.” I smiled because it felt good to finally be regarded as in a higher caste. My brother Elmer and I have actually been on both sides of this divide. Until we were 19, we were thought to be fraternal twins because that’s what the doctor at birth thought (based on the not-always accurate clue of separate placentas). However, we looked alike, and my parents insisted that we not be treated separately, in contrast with the then prevailing view that twins should be separated so they can develop their own personalities. I had never noticed much difference between how fraternals and identicals are treated. What mattered seemed to be whether they considered themselves twins or individuals. The article is about a twin convention, and I attribute the caste distinction to be evidence of the tendency of people to set up pecking orders in all circumstances.