Social Norms and

Customs
Norms: Mores and Folkways
Customs

Social Norms
A rule or standard of behavior defined by the
shared expectations of two or more people
regarding what behavior is to be considered
socially acceptable.
Social norms provide guidelines to the range of
behavior appropriate and applicable to particular
social institutions.
e.g. Married woman is expected to be more loyal
to in-laws house than her own natal family

Mores
Those

social norms that provide the moral

standards of behavior of a group or society.
Conformity to the mores is not optional, and
non-conformity is severely sanctioned.
Group members feel an emotional
attachment to the mores and their
preservation is considered essential to the
groups welfare.

 The

term is limited to those standards of

behavior that depend upon informal
sanctions and have not been enacted into
law. e.g. endogamy among various caste
groups and violations are punished with a
sanction like excommunication from the
community.

The Conservatism of the

Mores
The Mores are always considered right by the
group that shares them.
One reason is that they register a vast amount of
the groups experience mostly forgotten
experience.
It is experience transformed and stereotyped
into tradition, distorted by dominant interests,
and reinforced by fear.
Legalized efforts to change specific mores had
largely failed.

Folkways
Social norms that are socially approved but not
considered to be of moral significance.
Conformity to the folkways usually occurs
automatically without rational analysis and is
based primarily upon custom, passed on from
generation to generation through the
socialization of children. e.g. showing respect to
elderly members of family

 Folkways

are not enforced by law, but by

informal social control.

Custom
A

form of social behavior, that, having

persisted for a long period of time, is well
established in a society, has become
traditional, and has received some degree of
formal recognition.
The socially accredited ways of acting are the
customs of society. e.g. Arranging Marriage
dinner

 We

conform to the customs of our own

society, in a sense, unconsciously for they
are a strongly imbedded part of group life.
Custom are so intimate that, until we reflect
on it, we do not realize how they attend nearly
every occasion of our lives, how our actions
from morning till night, from youth to age, are
custom regulated.
Sometimes the term is used synonymously
with Social Norms.

Custom
It

is a group procedure that has gradually

emerged, without express enactment, without
any constituted authority to declare it, to
apply it, to safeguard it.
Custom is sustained by common acceptance.
Customs are most spontaneous of all social
rules and often the most compelling.

Custom and Law:

Interdependency
Custom

must be supplemented by law in

Modern Society
Custom as a supplement to law
The interdependency is essential for social
life
The interdependency creates a social space
for many new codes and laws

Custom must be supplemented by law in

Modern Society

Special

law with its special agency of

enforcement is required to resolve the
conflicts of interest.
Legal code helps custom to adapt to
changing condition.
All inclusive formal legal system is necessary
to protect the customary practices of different
classes and communities.

Custom as a supplement to law

Custom

not only, under normal conditions,

becomes a support of law but also
supplements law and prepares the way for its
development. Thus business customs,
gathering around law, in time in many cases
incorporated within it. e.g. the legal
institutional arrangement for customer care is
an extension of business custom of caring
and respecting customer.

 Law

establishes conditions which bring new

customs into being.

Clashes of Law and Custom

The

modern legal system clashes often with

the customs of the traditional societies. e.g.
The peoples protest against the law that
prevents animal sacrifices in the Temples