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FOLKWAYS

A STUDY OF THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMPORTANCE
OF USAGES, MANNERS, CUSTOMS,
MORES, AND MORALS
BY
WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER. 1906

Professor of Political and Social Science in Yale University

Transcriber's Note: Alternative spellings of some words have been retained as they were used in the original book.

WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER (1902)

Thus it is clearly seen that use, rather than reason, has power to introduce new things amongst us, and to do away with old things.—Castiglione, Il libro del Cortegiano, I, § 1.

That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery,
That aptly is put on.—Hamlet, III, 4.

What custom wills, in all things should we do't.
Coriolanus, II, 3.

Chapter I. Fundamental Notions of the Folkways and of the Mores

Definition and mode of origin of the folkways. — The folkways are a societal force. — Folkways are made unconsciously. — Impulse and instinct; primeval stupidity; magic. — The strain of improvement and consistency. — The aleatory element. — All origins are lost in mystery. — Spencer on primitive custom. — Good and bad luck; ills of life; goodness and happiness. — Illustrations. — Immortality and compensation. — Tradition and its restraints. — The concepts of "primitive society"; "we-groups" and "others-groups." — Sentiments in the in-group towards out-groups. — Ethnocentrism. — Illustrations. — Patriotism. — Chauvinism. — The struggle for existence and the competition of life; antagonistic coöperation. — Four motives: hunger, love, vanity, fear. — The process of making folkways. — Suggestion and suggestibility. — Suggestion in education. — Manias. — Suggestion in politics. — Suggestion and criticism. — Folkways based on false inferences. — Harmful folkways. — How "true" and "right" are found. — The folkways are right; rights; morals. — The folkways are true. — Relations of world philosophy to folkways. — Definition of the mores. — Taboos. — No primitive philosophizing; myths; fables; notion of social welfare. — The imaginative element. — The ethical policy and the success policy. — Recapitulation. — Scope and method of the mores. — Integration of the mores of a group or age. — Purpose of the present work. — Why use the word "mores." — The mores are a directive force. — Consistency in the mores. — The mores of subgroups. — What are classes? — Classes rated by societal value. — Class; race; group solidarity. — The masses and the mores. — Fallacies about the classes and the masses. — Action of the masses on ideas. — Organization of the masses. — Institutions of civil liberty. — The common man. — The "people"; popular impulses. — Agitation. — The ruling element in the masses. — The mores and institutions. — Laws. — How laws and institutions differ from mores. — Difference between mores and some cognate things. — Goodness or badness of the mores. — More exact definition of the mores. — Ritual. — The ritual of the mores. — Group interests and policy. — Group interests and folkways. — Force in the folkways. — Might and right. — Status. — Conventionalization. — Conventions indispensable. — The "ethos" or group character; Japan. — Chinese ethos. — Hindoo ethos. — European ethos.

Chapter II. Characteristics of the Mores

Introduction. — The mores have the authority of facts. — Whites and blacks in southern society. — The mores are unrecorded. — Inertia and rigidity of the mores. — Persistency of the mores. — Persistency against new religion. — Roman law. — Effects of Roman law on later mores. — Variability of the mores. — The mores of New England. — Revolution. — The possibility of modifying the mores. — Russia. — Emancipation in Russia and in the United States. — Arbitrary change in the mores. — The case of Japan. — The case of India. — The reforms of Joseph II. — Adoption of the mores of another age. — What changes are possible. — Dissent from the mores. Group orthodoxy. — Retreat and isolation to start new mores. — Social policy. — Degenerate and evil mores. — The correction of aberrations in the mores. — The mores of advance and decline; cases. — The Greek temper in prosperity. — Greek pessimism. — Greek degeneracy. — Sparta. — The optimism of advance and prosperity. — Antagonism between an individual and the mores of the group. — Antagonism of earlier and later mores. — Antagonism between groups in respect to mores. — Missions and mores. — Missions and antagonistic mores. — Modification of the mores by agitation. — Capricious interest of the masses. — How the group becomes homogeneous. — Syncretism. — The art of administering society.

Chapter III. The Struggle for Existence

Processes and artifacts of the food supply. — Fishing. — Methods of fishing. — The mystic element. — Religion and industry. — Artifacts and freaks of nature. — Forms of stone axes. — How stone implements are made. — How arrowheads are made. — How stone axes are used. — Acculturation or parallelism. — Fire-making tools. — Psychophysical traits of primitive man. — Language. — Language and magic. — Language is a case of folkways. — Primitive dialects. — Taking up and dropping language. — Pigeon dialects. — How languages grow. — Money. — Intergroup and intragroup money. — Predominant wares. — Intragroup money from property; intergroup money from trade. — Shell and bead money. — Token money. — Selection of a predominant ware. — Stone money in Melanesia. — Plutocratic effects of money. — Money on the northwest coast of North America. — Wampumpeag and roanoke. — Ring money. Use of metal. — The evolution of money. — The ethical functions of money.

Chapter IV. Labor, Wealth

Introduction. — Notions of labor. — Classical and mediæval notions. — Labor has always existed. — Modern view of labor. — Movable capital in modern society; conditions of equality; present temporary status of the demand for men. — Effect of the facility of winning wealth. — Chances of acquiring wealth in modern times; effect on modern mores; speculation involved in any change. — Mores conform to changes in life conditions; great principles; their value and fate. — The French revolution. — Ruling classes; special privileges; corruption of the mores. — The standard of living.

Chapter V. Societal Selection

Social selection by the mores. — Instrumentalities of suggestion. — Symbols, pictures, etc. — Apparatus of suggestion. — Watchwords, catchwords. — "Slave," "democracy." — Epithets. — Phrases. — Pathos. — Pathos is unfavorable to truth. — Analysis and verification as tests. — Humanity. — Selection by distinction. — Aristocracies. — Fashion. — Conventionalization. — Uncivilized fashions. — Ideals of beauty. — Fashion in other things than dress. — Miscellaneous fashions. — All deformations by fashion are irrational. — Satires on fashion. — Fashion in faiths and ideals. — Fashion is not trivial, not subject to argument. — Remoter effects of fashion. — Slang and expletives. — Poses, fads, and cant. — Illustrations. — Heroes, scapegoats, and butts. — Caricature. — Relation of fads, etc., to mores. — Ideals. — Ideals of beauty. — The man-as-he-should-be. — The standard type of man. — Who does the thinking? — The gentleman. — Standards set by taboos. — Crimes. — Criminal law. — Mass phenomena of fear and hope. — Manias, delusions. — Monstrous mass phenomena. — Gregariousness in the Middle Ages. — The mendicant orders. — Other mendicants. — Popular mania for poverty and beggary. — Delusions. — Manias and suggestion. — Power of the crowd over the individual. — Discipline by pain. — The mediæval church operated societal selection. — The mediæval church. — Sacerdotal celibacy. — The masses wanted clerical celibacy. — Abelard. — The selection of sacerdotal celibacy. — How the church operated selection. — Mores and morals; social code. — Orthodoxy; treatment of dissent; selection by torture. — Execution by burning. — Burning in North American colonies. — Solidarity in penalty for fault of one. — Torture in the ancient states. — Torture in the Roman empire. — Jewish and Christian universality; who persecutes whom? — The ordeal. — Irrationality of torture. — Inquisitorial procedure from Roman law. — Bishops as inquisitors. — Definition of heretic. — The Albigenses. — Persecution was popular. — Theory of persecution. — Duties laid on the civil authority. — Public opinion as to the burning of heretics. — The shares of the church and the masses. — The church uses its power for selfish aggrandizement. — The inquisition took shape slowly. — Frederick II and his code. — Formative legislation. — Dungeons. — The yellow crosses. — Confiscation. — Operation of the inquisition. — Success of the inquisition. — Torture in civil and ecclesiastical trials. — The selection accomplished. — Torture in England. — The Spanish inquisition. — The inquisition in Venice. — The use of the inquisition for political and personal purposes. — Stages of the selection by murder.

Chapter VI. Slavery

Origin and motives. — Slavery taught steady labor. — Servitude of group to group. — Slavery and polygamy. — Some men serve others. — Freedom and equality. — Figurative use of "slave." — Ethnography of slavery. — Family slavery. — Slavery amongst North American savages. — Slavery in South America. — Slavery in Polynesia and Melanesia. — Slavery in the East Indies. — Slavery in Asia. — Slavery in Japan. — Slavery in higher civilization. — Slavery amongst Jews. — Slavery in the classical states. — Slavery at Rome. — Slave revolts. — Later Roman slavery. — Slaves in the civil wars; clientage. — Manumission. Natural liberty. — Slavery as represented in the inscriptions. — Rise of freedom in industry. — Freedmen in the state. — Philosophers opponents of slavery. — The industrial colleges. — Laws changed in favor of slaves. — Christianity and slavery. — The colonate. — Depopulation. — Summary view of Roman slavery. — The Therapeuts. — Slavery amongst the Germanic nations. — The sale of children. — Slavery and the state. — Slavery in Europe. Italy in the Middle Ages. — Slavery in France. — Slavery in Islam. — Review of slavery in Islam. — Slavery in England. — Slavery in America. — Colonial slavery. — Slavery preferred by slaves. — The future of slavery. — Relation of slavery to the mores and to ethics.

Chapter VII. Abortion, Infanticide, Killing the Old

The able-bodied and the burdens. — The advantages and disadvantages of the aged. Respect and contempt for them. — Abortion and infanticide. — Relation of parent and child. — Population policy. — The burden and benefit of children. — Individual and group interest in children. — Abortion in ethnography. — Abortion renounced. — Infanticide in ethnography. — Infanticide renounced. — Ethics of abortion and infanticide. — Christian mores as to abortion and infanticide. — Respect and contempt for the aged. — The aged in ethnography. — Killing the old. — Killing the old in ethnography. — Special exigencies of the civilized. — How the customs of infanticide and killing the old were changed.

Chapter VIII. Cannibalism

Cannibalism. — Origin in food supply. — Cannibalism not abominable. — In-group cannibalism. — Population policy. — Judicial cannibalism. — Judicial cannibalism in ethnography. — Out-group cannibalism. — Cannibalism to cure disease. — Reversions to cannibalism. — Cannibalism in famine. — Cannibalism and ghost fear. — Cannibalism in sorcery and human sacrifice. — Cult and cannibalism. — Superstitions about cannibalism. — Food taboos in ethnography. — Expiation for taking life. — Philosophy of cannibalism.

Chapter IX. Sex Mores

Meaning of sex mores. — The sex difference. — Sex difference and evolution. — The sex distinction; family institution; marriage in the mores. — Regulation is conventional, not natural. — Egoistic and altruistic elements. — Primary definition of marriage; taboo and conventionalization. — Family, not marriage, is the institution. — Endogamy and exogamy. — Polygamy and polyandry. — Consistency of the mores under polygamy or polyandry. — Mother family and father family. — Change from mother family to father family. — Capture and purchase become ceremonies. — Feminine honor and virtue; jealousy. — Virginity. — Chastity for men. — Love marriage; conjugal affection; wife. — Heroic conjugal devotion. — Hindoo models and ideals. — Slavonic sex mores. — Russian sex mores. — Tribes of the Caucasus. — Mediæval sex mores. — The standard of the "good wife"; pair marriage. — "One flesh." — Pair marriage. — Marriage in modern mores. — Pair marriage, its technical definition. — Ethics of pair marriage. — Pair marriage is monopolistic. — The future of marriage. — The normal type of sex union. — Divorce. — Divorce in ethnography. — Rabbis on divorce. — Divorce at Rome. — Pair marriage and divorce. — Divorce in the Middle Ages. — Refusal of remarriage. — Child marriage. — Child marriage in Hindostan. — Child marriage in Europe. — Cloistering women. — Second marriages; widows. — Burning of widows. — Difficulty of reform of suttee in India. — Widows and remarriage in the Christian church. — Remarriage and other-worldliness. — Free marriage. — The Japanese woman.

Chapter X. The Marriage Institution

Mores lead to institutions. — Aleatory interest in marriage and the function of religion. — Chaldean demonism and marriage. — Hebrew marriage before the exile. — Jewish marriage after the exile. — Marriage in the New Testament. — The merit of celibacy. — Marriage in early Christianity. — Marriage in the Roman law. — Roman "free marriage." — Free marriage. — Transition from Roman to Christian marriage. — Ancient German marriage. — Early mediæval usage. — The place of religious ceremony. — The mode of expressing consensus. — Marriage at the church door. — Marriage in Germany, twelfth century. — The canon law. — Mediæval marriage. — Conflict of the mores with the church programme. — Church marriage; concubines. — The church elevated the notion of marriage. — The decrees of Trent about marriage. — Puritan marriage.

Chapter XI. The Social Codes

Specification of the subject. — Meaning of "immoral." — Natural functions. — The current code and character. — Definitions of chastity, decency, propriety, etc. — Chastity. — Pagan life policy. — Modesty and shame. — The line of decency in dress. — Present conventional limits of decency. — Decency and vanity. — Modesty is the opposite of impudence. — Shame. — The first attachments to the body. — The fear of sorcery. — What functions should be concealed. — Restraint of expression within limits. — Violation of rule. — The suspensorium. — The girdle and what it conceals. — Modesty and decency not primitive. — What parts of the body are tabooed? — Notion of decency lacking. — Dress and decency. — Ornament and simplest dress. — The evolution of dress. — Men dressed; women not. — Dress for other purposes than decency; excessive modesty. — Contrasted standards of decency. — Standards of decency as to natural functions, etc. — Bathing; customs of nudity. — Bathing in rivers, springs, and public bath houses. — Nudity. — Alleged motives of concealment taboo. — Obscenity. — Obscene representations for magic. — Infibulation. — Was the phallus offensive? — Phallus as amulet. — Symbols in Asia. — The notion of obscenity is modern. — Propriety. — Seclusion of women. — Customs of propriety. — Moslem rules of propriety. — Hatless women. — Rules of propriety. — Hindoo ritual of the toilet, etc. — Greek rules of propriety. — Erasmus's rules. — Eating. — Kissing. — Politeness, etiquette, manners. — Good manners. — Etiquette of salutation, etc. — Literature of manners and etiquette. — Honor, seemliness, common sense, conscience. — Seemliness. — Cases of unseemliness. — Greek tragedies and notions of seemliness. — Greek conduct. — Seemliness in the Middle Ages. — Unseemly debate. — Unseemliness of lynching, torture, etc. — Good taste. — Whence good taste is derived. — The great variety in the codes. — Morals and deportment. — The relation of the social codes to morals and religion. — Rudeck's conclusions.

Chapter XII. Incest

Definition. — Incest notion was produced from the folkways. — The notion that inbreeding is harmful. — Status-wife, work-wife, love-wife. — The abomination of incest. — The incest taboo is strongest in the strongest groups. — Incest in ethnography. — Incest in civilized states. — Where the line is drawn, and why. — Human self-selection. — Restriction by biological doctrine not sufficiently warranted. — Summary of the matter now.

Chapter XIII. Kinship, Blood Revenge, Primitive Justice, Peace

Kinship. — Forms of kinship. — Family education. — Kinds of kinship. — How family mores are formed. — Family and marriage. — Goblinism and kinship; blood revenge. — Procreation; forms of the family. — Notions about procreation and share in it. — Blood revenge and the in-group — Institutional ties replace the blood tie. — Peace in the in-group. — Parties to blood revenge. — Blood revenge in ethnography. — Blood revenge in Israel. — Peace units and peace pacts. — The instability of great peace unions. — The Arabs. — The development of the philosophy of blood revenge. — Alleviations of blood revenge. — The king's peace. — The origin of criminal law.

Chapter XIV. Uncleanness and the Evil Eye

Demonism and the aleatory interest. — Universality of primitive demonism. — Uncleanness. — Female uncleanness. — Uncleanness in ethnography. — Uncleanness in higher religions. — Uncleanness amongst Jews. — Uncleanness amongst Greeks. — These customs produced modesty and the subordination of women. — Uncleanness, holiness, devotedness. — The evil eye; jettatura. — The evil eye in ethnography. — Amulets against the evil eye. — Devices against the evil eye. — Insult and vituperation against the evil eye. — Interaction of the mores and the evil eye.

Chapter XV. The Mores can make Anything Right and prevent Condemnation of Anything

The mores define the limits which make right and wrong. — Public punishments. — Prisons in England in the eighteenth century. — Wars of factions; penalties of defeat. — Bundling. — Two forms of bundling. — Mediæval bundling. — Poverty and wooing. — Night wooing in the North American colonies. — Reasons for it. — Public lupanars. — The end of the lupanars. — Education needed to clarify the judgment.

Chapter XVI. Sacral Harlotry, Child Sacrifice

Men's clubhouses. — Consecrated women. — Relation of sacral harlotry and child sacrifice. — Reproduction and food supply. — The Gilgamesh epic. — The Adonis myth. — Religious ritual, religious drama, and harlotry. — The Babylonian custom; its relation to religion. — Religion and the mores. — Cases of sacral harlotry. — The same customs in the Old Testament. — The antagonism of abundance and excess. — Survivals of sacral harlotry; analogous customs in Hindostan. — Lingam and yoni. — Conventionalization. — Criticism of the mores of Hindostan. — Mexican mores; drunkenness. — Japanese mores. — Chinese religion and mores. — Philosophy of the interest in reproduction; incest. — The archaic is sacred. — Child sacrifice. — Beast sacrifice substituted for child sacrifice. — Mexican doctrine of greater power through death. — Motives of child sacrifice. — Dedication by vows. — Degeneration of the custom of consecrating women. — Our traditions come from Israel. — How the Jewish view of sensuality prevailed.

Chapter XVII. Popular Sports, Exhibitions, Drama

Limits of the study, Introduction. — Literature and drama in ethology. — Public amusements of the uncivilized; reversion to archaic, "natural" ways. — Chaldean and Mexican myths of reproduction dramatically represented. — Limit of toleration for propriety in exhibitions. — Origin of the Athenian drama. — Drama and worship; customs derived from the mysteries. — The word "God." — Kinship yields to religion as social tie. — Religion and drama; syncretism. — Beginnings of the theater at Rome. — Gladiatorial exhibitions. — Spread of gladiatorial exhibitions. — The folk drama. — The popular taste; realism; conventionality; satire. — Popular exhibitions. — Ancient popular festivals. — The mimus. — Modern analogies. — Biologs and ethologs. — Dickens as a biolog. — Early Jewish plays. — The Roman mimus. — The Suffering Christ; Pseudo-querolus. — The mimus and Christianity. — Popular phantasms. — Effects of vicious amusements. — Gladiatorial games. — Compromise between the church and popular customs. — The cantica. — Passion for the games. — German sports. — The mimus from the third to the eighth century. — The drama in the Orient. — Marionettes. — The drama in India. — Punch in the West. — Resistance of the church to the drama. — Hrotsvitha. — The jongleurs; processions. — Adam de la Halle. — The flagellants. — Use of churches for dramatic exhibitions. — Protest against misuse of churches. — Toleration of jests by the ecclesiastics. — Fictitious literature. — Romances of roguery. — Picaresque novels. — Books of beggars. — At the beginning of the sixteenth century. — The theater at Venice. — Dancing; public sports. — Women in the theater and on the stage. — The commedia del arte. — Jest books; Italian comedy at Paris. — Commedia del arte in Italy. — Summary and review. — Amusements need the control of educated judgment and will. — Amusements do not satisfy the current notions of progress.

Chapter XVIII. Asceticism

The exaggeration of opposite policies. — Failure of the mores and revolt against expediency. — Luck and welfare; self-discipline to influence the superior powers. — Asceticism in Japan. — Development of the arts; luxury; sensuality. — The ascetic philosophy. — Asceticism is an aberration. — The definitions depend on the limits. — Asceticism in India and Greece; Orphic doctrines. — Ascetic features in the philosophic sects. — Hebrew asceticism. — Nazarites, Rechabites, Essenes. — Roman asceticism. — Christian asceticism. — Three traditions united in Christianity. — Asceticism in the early church. — Asceticism in Islam. — Virginity. — Mediæval asceticism. — Asceticism in Christian mores. — Renunciation of property; beggary. — Ascetic standards. — The Mendicant Friars. — The Franciscans. — Whether poverty is a good. — Clerical celibacy. — How Christian asceticism ended.

Chapter XIX. Education, History

The superstition of education. — The loss from education; "missionary-made men." — Schools make persons all on one pattern; orthodoxy. — Criticism. — Reactions of the mores and education on each other. — The limitations of the historian. — Overvaluation of history. — Success and the favor of God. — Philosophic faiths and the study of history. — Democracy and history. — The study of history and the study of the mores. — The most essential element of education. — The history of the mores is needed.

Chapter XX. Life Policy, Virtue vs. Success

Life policy. — Oaths; truthfulness vs. success. — The clever hero. — Odysseus, Rother, Njal. — Clever heroes in German epics. — Lack of historic sense amongst Christians. — Success policy in the Italian Renaissance. — Divergence between convictions and conduct. — Classical learning a fad. — The humanists. — Individualism. — Perverted use of words. — Extravagance of passions and acts. — The sex relation and the position of women. — The cult of success. — Literature on the mores. — Moral anarchy.

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PREFACE

In 1899 I began to write out a text-book of sociology from material which I had used in lectures during the previous ten or fifteen years. At a certain point in that undertaking I found that I wanted to introduce my own treatment of the "mores." I could not refer to it anywhere in print, and I could not do justice to it in a chapter of another book. I therefore turned aside to write a treatise on the "Folkways," which I now offer. For definitions of "folkways" and "mores" see secs. 1, 2, 34, 39, 43, and 66. I formed the word "folkways" on the analogy of words already in use in sociology. I also took up again the Latin word "mores" as the best I could find for my purpose. I mean by it the popular usages and traditions, when they include a judgment that they are conducive to societal welfare, and when they exert a coercion on the individual to conform to them, although they are not coördinated by any authority (cf. sec. 42). I have also tried to bring the word "Ethos" into familiarity again (secs. 76, 79). "Ethica," or "Ethology," or "The Mores" seemed good titles for the book (secs. 42, 43), but Ethics is already employed otherwise, and the other words were very unfamiliar. Perhaps "folkways" is not less unfamiliar, but its meaning is more obvious. I must add that if any one is liable to be shocked by any folkways, he ought not to read about folkways at all. "Nature her custom holds, let shame say what it will" (Hamlet, IV, 7, ad fin.). I have tried to treat all folkways, including those which are most opposite to our own, with truthfulness, but with dignity and due respect to our own conventions.

Chapter I contains elaborate definitions and expositions of the folkways and the mores, with an analysis of their play in human ivsociety. Chapter II shows the bearing of the folkways on human interests, and the way in which they act or are acted on. The thesis which is expounded in these two chapters is: that the folkways are habits of the individual and customs of the society which arise from efforts to satisfy needs; they are intertwined with goblinism and demonism and primitive notions of luck (sec. 6), and so they win traditional authority. Then they become regulative for succeeding generations and take on the character of a social force. They arise no one knows whence or how. They grow as if by the play of internal life energy. They can be modified, but only to a limited extent, by the purposeful efforts of men. In time they lose power, decline, and die, or are transformed. While they are in vigor they very largely control individual and social undertakings, and they produce and nourish ideas of world philosophy and life policy. Yet they are not organic or material. They belong to a superorganic system of relations, conventions, and institutional arrangements. The study of them is called for by their social character, by virtue of which they are leading factors in the science of society.

When the analysis of the folkways has been concluded it is necessary that it should be justified by a series of illustrations, or by a setting forth of cases in which the operation of the mores is shown to be what is affirmed in the analysis. Any such exposition of the mores in cases, in order to be successful, must go into details. It is in details that all the graphic force and argumentative value of the cases are to be found. It has not been easy to do justice to the details and to observe the necessary limits of space. The ethnographical facts which I present are not subsequent justification of generalizations otherwise obtained. They are selections from a great array of facts from which the generalizations were deduced. A number of other very important cases which I included in my plan of proofs and illustrations I have been obliged to leave out for lack of space. Such are: Demonism, Primitive Religion, and Witchcraft; The Status of Women; War; Evolution and the Mores; Usury; Gambling; Societal vOrganization and Classes; Mortuary Usages; Oaths; Taboos; Ethics; Æsthetics; and Democracy. The first four of these are written. I may be able to publish them soon, separately. My next task is to finish the sociology.

W. G. SUMNER

Yale University

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A. G. KELLER

Yale University

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