Essay on the Social Importance of Mores – MacIver and Page have mentioned the following social functions of mores.
(i) Mores determine much of our individual behaviour:
Mores always bring direct pressure on our behaviour. They mould our character and restrain our tendencies. They act as powerful instruments of social control. Mores are indoctrinated into the personalities of the individuals from the beginning and hence they help them to exercise constraints over their own behaviour.
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(ii) Mores identify the individual with the group:
Mores are the means by which the individual gains identification with his fellows. As a result of that, he maintains social relations with others that are clearly essential for satisfactory living.
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(iii) Mores are the guardians of social solidarity:
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Mores bring the people together and weld them into one strong cohesive group. Those who share common mores also share many other patterns of behaviour. Every group or society has its own mores. There are more for each sex, for all ages, for all classes, for all groups from the family to the nation. The mores of each of these help to maintain the solidarity of the group.
With the evolution of society, the mores have become more ‘specialized’. Their Control on the civilized and the advanced people is also diminishing. Hence, they are supplemented with laws and legislations.
Folkways and Mores: Differences
Folkways and mores can be distinguished in the following manner.
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(t) Mores are relatively wider and more general in character than the folkways.
(ii) Mores imply a value-judgement about the folkways.
(iii) Out of the mores comes our profound conviction of right and wrong and not out of the folkways.
(iv) An individual may disobey the ordinary folkways without incurring any severe punishment. But violation of the mores brings him strong disapproval and severe punishment.
(v) Mores are more compulsive, regulative and rigid than the folkways. Hence, mores are more effective and influential in moulding our character and restricting our tendencies.
(vi) As Sumner has suggested when the folkways take on a philosophy of right living and a life policy of welfare, folkways become mores. Hence the mores always contain a welfare element in them.
(vii) Folkways are less deeply rooted in society and change more rapidly. On the other hand, mores are deeply rooted in society and change less frequently. Folkways may change with one’s social status and occupational position. But mores do not change in that manner for they are permanent standards of right conduct.
From the above description, we may feel that the line dividing the folkways from mores is clear and definite. But it is not so always. Differentiating one from the other becomes extremely difficult especially in the marginal cases. For example, drinking liquor is regarded by some as simply bad and must be avoided. But some others may condemn it as highly immoral a practice.
As Sumner has remarked our conceptions of right and wrong, proper and improper are mostly determined by the folkways and mores. They can make anything right and anything wrong. Of the two, mores are more dominant than the folkways. Even the laws are often called the ‘codified mores’.