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

The work offers a systematic account of folkways and mores, defining them as customary habits and norms that arise from efforts to satisfy human needs and acquire authoritative force through tradition; it analyzes how such usages exert social coercion without formal authority, become regulative institutions, shape beliefs and policies, resist deliberate change, and eventually transform or decay. Opening chapters develop definitions and theoretical analysis; later sections apply the theory through ethnographic and historical illustrations and explore implications for religion, family, ethics, and social organization.