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WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER
WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER
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. What custom wills, in all things should we do't. Coriolanus , II, 3. ...
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PREFACE
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,
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
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."—Sentime
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
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 refor
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
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.—In
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
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 pr
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
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.—F
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
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.—Late
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
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 ethnograp
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
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. 338. Cannibalism. Canniba
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
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
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
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.—Mar
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
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 suspensori
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
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. 508. Definition of incest. Incest is the marital union of a man and a woman who are akin
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
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
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
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 m
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
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. 572. Mores define the limits which make anything right. At every turn we find new evidence that the mores can make anythin
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
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 mor
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
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.—
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
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.—
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
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. Introduction. The one
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
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. 712. Life policy. Some primitive
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LIST OF BOOKS CITED
LIST OF BOOKS CITED
Full titles of all books cited are given below in the alphabetical order of the authors' names or of the leading word of the title. Numbers after the title are the pages in the present volume on which the book is cited or used as an authority....
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