Editing Honour (section)

== Cultural difference from law ==
{{more citations needed|section|date=August 2021}}
Various sociologists and anthropologists have contrasted cultures of honour with cultures of law. A culture of law has a body of laws which all members of society must obey, with punishments for transgressors. This requires a society with the structures required to enact and enforce laws. A culture of law incorporates a [[social contract]]: members of society give up some aspects of their freedom to defend themselves and to retaliate for injuries, on the understanding that society will apprehend and punish transgressors.<ref>{{cite wikisource |title=Leviathan |chapter=The Second Part |wslink=Leviathan |last=Hobbes |first=Thomas |authorlink=Thomas Hobbes |date=1651 |location=London}}</ref>

An alternative to government enforcement of laws is community or individual enforcement of social norms.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ostrom |first=Elinor |date=2000 |title=Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms |url=https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/jep.14.3.137 |journal=Journal of Economic Perspectives |volume=14 |issue=3 |pages=137–158 |doi=10.1257/jep.14.3.137 |issn=0895-3309 |jstor=2646923|hdl=10535/5683 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

One way that honour functions is through [[reputation]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ferry |first=Mathieu |url=https://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-030-97417-6_20-2 |title=Global Handbook of Inequality |date=2024 |publisher=Springer International Publishing |isbn=978-3-030-97417-6 |editor-last=Jodhka |editor-first=Surinder S. |location=Cham |pages=1–21 |chapter=Social Honour: From Status Groups to Status Beliefs and Recognition Gaps |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-97417-6_20-2 |editor-last2=Rehbein |editor-first2=Boike}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Devi |first=Rama |url=https://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-981-96-0832-4_3 |title=Caste and Emancipatory Quest |publisher=Springer Nature Singapore |isbn=978-981-96-0831-7 |location=Singapore |publication-date=22 March 2025 |pages=79–108 |chapter=Between Shame and Honour: Marriage, Love, Caste, and Gender |doi=10.1007/978-981-96-0832-4_3}}</ref> In a system where there is no court that will authorise the use of force to guarantee the execution of contracts, an honourable reputation is very valuable to promote [[Trust (emotion)|trust]] among transaction partners. To dishonour an agreement could be economically ruinous, because future potential transaction partners might stop trusting the party not to lie, steal their money or goods, not repay debts, mistreat the children they marry off, have children with other people, abandon their children, or fail to provide aid when needed. A dishonourable person might be shunned by the community as a way to punish bad behaviour and create an incentive for others to maintain their honour.

If one's honour is questioned, it can thus be important to disprove any false accusations or [[slander]]. In some cultures, the practice of [[dueling]] arose as a means to settle such disputes firmly, though by physical dominance in force or skill rather than by objective consideration of evidence and facts.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Pitt-Rivers |first=Julian |date=1997 |title=Honour |url=https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/2455/94p229.pdf |journal=Proceedings of the British Academy |volume=94 |pages=229-251}}</ref>

Honour can also imply [[duty]] to perform certain actions, such as providing for and disciplining one's children, serving in the military during war, contributing to local collective projects like building infrastructure, or exacting [[revenge]] in retaliation for acts one is directly harmed by.

===Family honour===
The concept of personal honour can be extended to [[family honour]], which strengthens the incentives to follow social norms in two ways. First, the consequences of dishonourable actions (such as suicide or attempted robbery that results in death) outlive the perpetrator, and negatively affect family members they presumably care about. Second, when one member of the family misbehaves, other members of the family are in the position to and are incentivised to strongly enforce the community norms.

In strong honour cultures, those who do not conform may be forced or pressured into conformance and transgressors punished physically or psychologically. The use of violence may be collective in its character, where many relatives act together.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=http://www.hedersfortryck.se/hedersfortryck/vad-ar-hedersrelaterat-vald-och-fortryck/kollektivistiska-strukturer/|url-status=dead|title=Kollektivistiska strukturer|work=County administrative board of [[Östergötland]] ([[Länsstyrelsen]] Östergötland)|access-date=2017-11-15|language=sv-SE|archive-date=15 November 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171115143539/http://www.hedersfortryck.se/hedersfortryck/vad-ar-hedersrelaterat-vald-och-fortryck/kollektivistiska-strukturer/}}</ref> An extreme form of punishment is [[honour killing]]. Dueling and vengeance at a family level can result in a sustained [[feud]].

Honour-based cultures are also known as honour-shame cultures and are contrasted with guilt cultures on the [[guilt-shame-fear spectrum of cultures]].

{{Conservatism sidebar}}

Cultures of honour are often conservative, encoding pre-modern traditional [[family values]] and duties. In some cases these values clash with those of post-[[sexual revolution]] and [[egalitarian]] societies. Cultures of law sometimes consider practices in honour cultures to be unethical or a violation of the legal concept of [[human right]]s; for example, they may outlaw [[vigilante]] or individual justice-taking.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{multiref2
|1={{Cite news|first=Mark|last=Cooney|year=2015|url=https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780195396607/obo-9780195396607-0160.xml|title=Honor Cultures and Violence – Criminology – Oxford Bibliographies – obo|access-date=2017-11-15}}
|2={{Cite news|url=https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/gavleborg/polisens-utredare-utbildades-i-om-hederskulturer|title=Polisens utredare utbildades om hederskulturer|last=Nyheter|first=SVT|work=SVT Nyheter|access-date=2017-11-15|language=sv}}
|3={{Cite news|url=https://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/25/middleeast/jordan-lebanon-marriage-rape-law/index.html|title=Laws that let rapists marry victims must be abolished, Mideast activists say|first=Tamara |last=Qiblawi|publisher=CNN|access-date=2017-11-15}}
|4={{cite journal |last1=Lin |first1=Ying |last2=Caluori |first2=Nava |last3=Öztürk |first3=Engin Bağış |last4=Gelfand |first4=Michele J. |title=From virility to virtue: the psychology of apology in honor cultures |journal=[[Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America|Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences]] |date=2022 |volume=119 |issue=41 |pages=e2210324119 |doi=10.1073/pnas.2210324119 |doi-access=free|pmid=36191220 |pmc=9564922 |bibcode=2022PNAS..11910324L }}
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