All the various forms of social norms are instruments of social control in varying degrees. The social usages, folkways regulating our behavior, are called mores. The folk Ways as well as mores have the same source of their emergence and it is group interaction. Both are the customary ways of life and are standards of right and wrong. The people seek direction of their actions by learning these norms in group life.
The difference lies in the degree of social control upon groups. Mores are more compulsory to conform than the folkways. Wearing clothes s mores and the clothes of different styles are folkways. Purdah serving for ladies used to be mores in our society but it has now been left as folkways.
There are certain tribes, castes and sects in our society in which it is still a mores. For example, the people of Frontier Region, some families and people of certain castes hold it a ‘must’. Most of the families living in the farmsteads and villages of Punjab, Sindh and Baluchistan Usually consider purdah for women as folkways. Mores determines that such item in the society holds such position and holds such value Folkways or mores, whatever the method of social control both vary in their degree of intensity. This degree is the degree of value attached by the culture to that item.
Mores is the plural of mores which means custom. Mores is from moral and refers to any act or belief in accordance with customary group expectations. An act is moral if it is cu1stomary, immoral if it is not4. Some examples of mores from our culture are given below:
Definition
According to R.M. Maciver and C.H. Page, “When the folkways have added to them conceptions of group welfare, standards of right and wrong, they are converted into mores”.Glum and Gillin say that “Mores are those customs and group routines which are thought by the members of the society to be necessary to the group’s continued existence”.
As Edward Sapir has pointed out, “The term ‘mores is best reserved for those customs which connote fairly strong feelings of the tightness or wrongness of mode of behavior”.
In simple words, we can say when the folkways clearly represent the group standards, the group sense of what is fitting, right and conducive to well-being, then they become mores.
Examples
Sanctity of mosque and other sacred beliefs and other sacred beliefs and practices: Nikah ceremony; Namaz-e-Janaza and its burial (for Muslims) students to attend classes regularly; college students to obey the college norms; respect for the parents; not to interfere in free life of other citizens; use of light in vehicles, in big cities, at night; driving always to the left (also a law); not to violate others property and life; and 50 many other examples can be mentioned which are both folkways as well as mores. Mores are more serious norms but also informal like folkways.
They are also unwritten Customary ways of life. They have very serious binding on groups. Their violation is a serious threat, to social order. For example, having sexual relations with women without marriage, entering into other’s house without permission, breaking purdah of women, selling and eating unclean (haram) meat, drinking, abducting children are the violation of mores. Such incidents create unrest among the people. On violation of mores, the people take very serious action and sometimes they even beat the violator. Police action is seldom required because such violations are mostly out of police jurisdiction.
Violation of Mores
Mores deal with higher values of people. The violation of mores is a serious threat to higher values of life, honor and property. People want protection of their values If the mores are followed there is no problem of value endanger.
Mores are so important in society that their boundary sometimes touches the border of law. Keeping to the left on roads is a mores as well as a law.
Mores are so important in society that their boundary sometimes touches the border of law. Keeping to the left on roads is a mores as well as a law.
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