Editing Honour (section)

== Social context ==
[[File:Wall of Honour, Royal Military College of Canada.jpg|thumb|right|Wall of Honour, [[Royal Military College of Canada]]]]

Honour as a code of behaviour defines the duties of an individual within a social group. Margaret Visser observes that in an '''honour-based society''' "a person is what he or she is in the eyes of other people".<ref name=Visser>
{{cite news | first = Jim | last = Doris | title =  A conversation with Margaret Visser: diagnosing that feeling of helplessness - Canada |via=LookSmart | date = 2003-01-05 | url = http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0MKY/is_1_27/ai_111696819/ | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040907010548/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0MKY/is_1_27/ai_111696819/ | archive-date=2004-09-07 | work = [[Catholic New Times]] | access-date = 2011-03-10}}</ref> A '''code of honour''' differs from a legal code, also socially defined and concerned with justice, in that honour remains implicit rather than explicit and objectified.

One can distinguish honour from [[dignity]], which Wordsworth assessed as measured against an individual's conscience<ref>{{citation|quote=...dignity abides with him alone / Who, in the silent hour of inward thought, / Can still suspect, and still revere himself....|author-link=William Wordsworth|first=William|last=Wordsworth|year=1795|title=Left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree, which stands near the lake of Esthwaite, on a desolate part of the shore, commanding a beautiful prospect|url=https://www.bartleby.com/lit-hub/the-complete-poetical-works-4/left-upon-a-seat-in-a-yew-tree-which-stands-near-the-lake-of-esthwaite-on-a-desolate-part-of-the-shore-commanding-a-beautiful-prospect/ |via=bartleby }}</ref> rather than against the judgement of a community. The sociological concept of [[Face (sociological concept)|face]] is related to honour.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ho |first=David Yau-fai |date=January 1976 |title=On the Concept of Face |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/226145 |journal=American Journal of Sociology |volume=81 |issue=4 |pages=867–884 |doi=10.1086/226145 |issn=0002-9602 |via=The University of Chicago Press Journals}}</ref>

In the early medieval period, a lord's or lady's honour was the group of manors or lands he or she held. "The word was first used indicating an estate which gave its holder dignity and status."<ref>{{cite book|title=A Dictionary of Medieval Terms and Phrases|first=Christopher|last=Corédon|year=2004|publisher=D.S. Brewer|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-1-84384-023-7}}</ref> For a person to say "on my honour" was not just an affirmation of his or her [[integrity]] and rank, but the veracity behind that phrase meant he or she was willing to offer up estates as pledge and guarantee.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Proctor |first=Tammy M. |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/4144911?origin=crossref |title=On My Honour: Guides and Souts in Interwar Britain |publisher=American Philosophical Society |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-87169-922-0 |volume=92 |location=Philadelphia |doi=10.2307/4144911 |issn=0065-9746 |jstor=4144911}}</ref>

The concept of honour appears to have declined in importance in the modern [[Western world|West]]; [[conscience]] has replaced it<ref name=TheWarriorsHonour>{{cite book|last= Ignatieff|first= Michael|title= The Warrior's Honour: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience|year= 1997|publisher= Henry Holt and Co.|location= New York, New York}}</ref> in the individual context, and the rule of law (with the rights and duties defined therein) has taken over in a social context. Popular [[stereotype]]s would have it surviving more definitively in more tradition-bound cultures (e.g. [[Pashtuns|Pashtun]], [[Southern Italy|Southern Italian]], [[Polish people|Polish]], [[Persian people|Persian]], [[Turkey|Turkish]], [[Arab]], [[Iberian peninsula|Iberian]], "[[Old South]]" or [[Dixie]]) in a perception akin to [[Orientalism]]. Pre-modern societies may tend to "honour" more than do contemporary industrial societies.<ref name=TheWarriorsHonour/> Saint [[Anselm of Canterbury]] ({{circa|1033–1109}}) in ''[[Cur Deus Homo]]'' extended the concept of honour from his own feudal society to postulate God's honour.<ref>{{cite book
| last                  = Lindberg
| first                 = Carter 
| title                 = A Brief History of Christianity
| url                   = https://books.google.com/books?id=NlFbJXGWSTIC
| access-date           = 2012-12-30
| series                = Blackwell Brief Histories of Religion
| year                  = 2009
| publisher             = John Wiley & Sons
| isbn                  = 978-1-4051-4887-0
| pages                 = 79–80
| quote                 = Anselm's understanding of sin posits that sin is an objective deprivation of the honour that belongs to God. The decisive concept of the honour of God reflects Anselm's feudal social world. To deprive a person of his or her honour was a fundamental crime against the social order. Furthermore, such an offence is proportionately magnified according to the status of the person in the hierarchical order [...] 
}}</ref>

An emphasis on the importance of honour exists in such traditional institutions as the [[military]] (serving officers may conduct a [[Court of Honor|court of honour]]) and in organisations with a military ethos, such as [[Scouting]] organisations (which also feature "Courts of Honour"<ref>{{cite book
|last1= Baden-Powell
|first1= Robert
|author-link1= Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell
|title= Scouting For Boys: A Handbook for Instruction in Good Citizenship Through Woodcraft
|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=PmnaAAAAMAAJ
|publisher= Scout Association
|date= 1991 
|access-date= 2015-03-06
|quote= The Court of Honour is an important part of the Patrol System. It is a standing committee which settles the affairs of the troop.
|page=27
|isbn= 978-0-85165-247-4
}}</ref>).

Honour in the case of sexuality frequently relates, historically, to [[fidelity]]: preservation of "honour" equates primarily to maintenance of the [[virginity]] of singles and to the exclusive [[monogamy]] of the remainder of the population. Further conceptions of this type of honour vary widely between cultures; some cultures regard [[honour killing]]s of (mostly female) members of one's own family as justified if the individuals have "defiled the family's honour" by marrying against the family's wishes, usually for reasons such as refusing to enter an arranged marriage, having sex outside marriage, dressing in ways which are deemed inappropriate, or engaging in homosexual relations or even by becoming the victims of [[rape]]. [[Human rights]] observers generally see these honour killings as a way of men using the culture of honour to control female sexuality.<ref>{{cite news | title = Honour killings of girls and women | date = 1999-08-31 | publisher = [[Amnesty International]] | url = https://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA33/018/1999/en | work = Amnesty International library | access-date = 2013-12-03}}</ref> In [[India]] in the 2010s, there were honour killings of men from lower [[caste]]s.<ref>{{cite news |title=India Dalit man hacked to death in 'honour killing' |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-35800449 |work=BBC News |date=14 March 2016}}</ref>

[[Skinner (profession)|Skinners]], [[executioner]]s, [[Gravedigger|grave-diggers]], [[shepherds]], [[Barber surgeon|barber-surgeons]], [[Miller|millers]], [[Weaving#Medieval Europe|linen-weavers]], sow-gelders, [[Manual scavenging|latrine-cleaners]], [[Bailiff#Low Countries and German-speaking lands|bailiffs]] and their families were among the "dishonourable people" (''unehrliche Leute'') in early modern German society.<ref>{{cite book|first=Kathy|last=Stuart|title=Defiled Trades and Social Outcasts – Honor and Ritual Pollution in Early Modern Germany|publisher=Cambridge University Press| url = https://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/cam032/98053585.pdf | year=2000}}</ref>