SOCIAL HEREDITY 181 



their customs and usages will differ, and consequently 

 there will be diverse standards in widely separated lo- 

 calities. This is just the case. The Eskimo regarded 

 it as his duty to kill his aged parent. We have been 

 reared under conditions which have been much less rig- 

 orous ; consequently we regard the act with abhorrence ; 

 it is positively immoral to us. In Australia, a girl con- 

 siders that honor requires her to be knocked down and 

 carried off by the man who is to become her husband. 

 If she is the victim of violence she is not ashamed. 

 Eskimo girls would be ashamed to go away with their hus- 

 bands without crying and lamenting, however glad they 

 might be to go. It shocks them to hear that European 

 women publicly consent in church to be wives, and then 

 go with their husbands without pretending to regret it. 

 Kaffirs ridicule the Christian love marriage. Where 

 polygamy prevails women are ashamed to marry men 

 who can afford only one wife; under monogamy they 

 think it disgraceful to marry men who have other wives. 

 Among the Japanese the bond between child and father 

 is regarded as most sacred. A man leaving father and 

 mother to "cleave to his wife" would become a social 

 outcast. For this reason the Japanese consider the 

 Christian Bible immoral and irreligious. 12 We are not 

 accustomed to eat dogs, yet among some primitive peo- 

 ples dogs are regarded as great delicacies. 13 Thus the 

 usages of a people may differ from those of another 

 people to such a degree that what is proper and customary 

 with one may be regarded as disgusting or immoral by 

 the other. There can be no logical reason given for 

 these differences in custom. Variance in standards of 



12 Sumner, op. cit., pp. 109-110. is fleas, op. cit., p. 215. 



