Folkways / A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals

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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.

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.