Folkways

William Graham Sumner's influential study of how customs, habits, and mores shape human societies.

At a glance The book that gave the word "folkways" to sociology, arguing that the unwritten rules of… Long before we notice them, the habits of a community shape what we eat, whom we marry… In Folkways, William Graham Sumner set out to examine those unwritten codes and to show… What it's about Sumner surveys an immense range of human custom, drawing on societies…

Sumner surveys an immense range of human custom, drawing on societies across history and around the world, to argue that shared habits harden over time into folkways and, when charged with a sense of right and welfare…