it is a delicate question in today's world..whether our young people ( a good part of the generation) find more pleasure in their strutting sins than their elders find in denouncng them.Life,from the point of view of morals seems to be divided into two periods;in the first,we indulge,in the second we preach;passion yields to caution,and the general currents of desire become the winds of speech;the tempo of life slackens ,the mood changes,and senility finds it hard to forgive the youth. " Truth " in these matters is a function of age,and " immorality " is other people's morals.Those of us who have simmered down from youth and not yet(perhaps) congealed into old age,may make with some chance of success in an attempt to understand our heirs.The proper orientation is historical;we must contemplate the variability of Good, the fluid relativity of morals;we must see the earthly and fallible source of moral ideas, and their dependence upon the changing bases of human life.
Moral derive from customs ;morality in origin,is adherence to those customs which are considered essential to the health and preservation of the group.some customs are mere conventions but certain customs like monogamy or polygamy , abstention from murder within the tribe,and willingness to kill outside it come to be looked upon as vital to the common good;they develop into commands not to be questioned and are defended by passionate exhortations and even excommunications, conventions are customs which are more practiced than preached;morals are customs which are more preached than practiced. it is astonishing how the moral code has varied from time to time and from place to place. the christians were disturbed by the idea of polygamy but it was not immoral for the ancient jews to pay the expenses of several wives since it was the custom of the time. we have our own lores in india on the same subject and we all know the provisions in Islam.In the ages of war and pestilence, polygamy was a virtue for the group is blessed with many children. Before social order replaced conflicts of tribe with tribe, the death rate of men far exceeded that of women ! similarly orientals covered their heads to show respect;in the west, they bare it ! it was considered as immodest for an arab woman to show her face,or a chinese to show her foot !
it would be a simple matter to gather a hundred further instances in which "immoral " of our time and place is the " moral " of other ages and lands.apparently moral codes kept changing...the economic basis of life perhaps determined the change..passage from hunting to agriculture and agriculture to industry..events in human development from primitive to the modern..has brought about changes..
today, morals are changing...like clouds before the wind !
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