CUSTOM (OF. costume, Fr- eoutumc, It. cos 'lama, AIL, eustnma, costuma, from Lat. con suet ado, habit, from consueseere, to grow accus tomed, from eonsuere, to lie accustomed, from con, together ± suere, to he accustomed; prob ably from suns. (1k. ide, hew, Sc, hos, Skt. sra, Av. bra. one's own). One of the three great departments of social psychology (q.v.), co ordinate with language and myth (qq.v.). It may be defined as "an norm of voluntary action which has been developed in a national or tribal community" (Wundt). Like animal instinct (q.v.), it is the outgrowth of individual habits. But instinct is practically invariable; it ex presses the habits of past generations in the form of mechanized, not of consciously motived, actions, whereas custom, however rigorous its prescriptions, may always be disobeyed or modi fied; the customary action has not lost its con scious antecedents. Hence we may say that "instinct is habitual conduct that has become mechanical; custom, habitual conduct that has become generic." The origin of custom appears to have been twofold. In the great majority of cases in which we are able to trace a custom back toward its first beginnings, we come upon religions or ceremonial ideas. In certain other cases cus tom_ seems to have originated in ancient rules of law, the meaning of which has been forgotten, while the usage which they enjoin still persists: although, when we consider that every action of importance in a primitive society, whatever its special significance, has a religious aspect, we shall probably not be wrong in referring these legal customs also to an ultimately religious source. As an illustration of legal custom we may cite the Greek and Roman marriage cere mony, in which it was an established tradition that the mothers of the contracting families should bring the bride and groom together—a clear indication of that law of mother-riglit which the civilized societies of the ancient world had long outgrown. But the mother-right is it
self permeated through and through with primi tive mythological conceptions: so that we are, in this case, thrown back with practical certainty upon a religious origin of the custom. As an instance of the transformation by custom of the purpose of a religious ceremonial, we may take the funeral feast. In primitive times the 'funer al baked meats' were furnished forth as a sacri ficial feast : the mourner seeks in part to obtain the favor of the gods for his dead and in part to offer worship to the dead man himself. Later the feast becomes a meal shared in all pi6ty with the dead; the survivors symbolize their brotherhood with the departed by partaking of the meat which is to sustain him on his pil grimage to the other world. Nowadays the cake and wine may be offered quite perfunctorily; or may bring so much of comfort to the mourners as springs from the conviction that they have dealt handsomely with the dead : or may serve as an excuse for ill-timed carousals. In any event it has completely lost its primary signifi cance, and has persisted only by virtue of that ris inertia' which makes custom at large so valu able a mine of information to the anthropologist and social psychologist.
Consult: Ethics (London, 1S97) : id., Volkerpsychologie (Leipzig. 1900) : Tylor. Primi tire. Culture (New York. 1891) : id., Early _His tory of .Mankind (London. 1878) : id., Antlro poloipq (New York, 1881). See ANTHROPOLOGY. For the legal aspect of custom. see the follow ing article.