Witty, Anthropological
Although The Age of Innocence is written in the third person, it can feels like the novel is written from one person’s point of view. It's easy to imagine the personality of the person narrating the novel: probably somebody who has an eagle eye for social manners and customs, somebody who could be both compassionate and cynical, somebody who is intelligent without being boring, somebody who's witty and funny and probably the life of the party… huh. Sounds like Edith Wharton to us.
Take a gander one some of her razor-sharp observations:
Packed in the family landau they rolled from one tribal doorstep to another, and Archer, when the afternoon's round was over, parted from his betrothed with the feeling that he had been shown off like a wild animal cunningly trapped. (9.5)
This is clever, and dry as a bone. Newland is going on freaking house calls, and is probably wearing silk. Yet his feeling is that he's a trapped wild animal—yeah this is the same super-privileged and domestic Newland.
The novel at times also sounds like an anthropological study— but in a funny way, not in a fusty textbook kind of way. When the novel talks about how bridal customs haven't evolved much from the days when women were dragged away screaming to their husband's cave, we smirk. But we’re also getting educated.
This observation makes the point that underneath all the talk of chastity and super-complicated social rituals, marriage in this society is still about the bride as a property that brings families together: for example, between the Archers and the Wellands.
There is also the tribal element of rallying around one of the members of the group, as they do for May when it is obvious that Newland has the serious hots for Ellen:
The fact of Madame Olenska's "foreignness" could hardly have been more adroitly emphasized than by this farewell tribute; and Mrs. Van der Luyden accepted her displacement with an affability which left no doubt as to her approval. There were certain things that had to be done, and if done at all, done handsomely and thoroughly; and one of these, in the old New York code, was the tribal rally around a kinswoman about to be eliminated from the tribe.(33.15)
This anthropological style was useful for making sure the audience in 1920 knew what was happening, and it's even more super-useful for letting 21st century readers in on the social secrets of the 1870s. Little Old New York society celebs: they're not just like us.