2.3 Social Norms and Values

• Values = shared conceptions of the desirable (honesty, satya; respect for elders; paropakar). They are the ends.• Norms = shared rules prescribing behaviour in situations. They are the means. W. G.Sumner's Folkways (1906) gives the classic ladder: 1. Folkways — everyday customs (greeting namaste, eating with the right hand, jutho avoidance); mild sanctions (a frown). 2. Mores — norms bearing on group welfare and morality (incest prohibition, hospitality duties); strong sanctions (ostracism, shame). 3. Laws — state-made, formal, enforced by state sanction. Law is thus formalised mores — the exact hinge where sociology meets legal science (Unit 3's central insight).• Sanctions: positive/negative; formal/informal — the enforcement machinery of norms (a pancha elder's mediation is informal; a District Court order is formal).Nepali illustration (memorise one): the norm against jutho (ritual pollution of shared food) — a folkway/more with caste ranking underneath; when the state enforces equality in public eateries (Caste-based Discrimination and Untouchability (Offence and Punishment) Act 2068), law deliberately attacks an old more. Norms, law and social change in one example.