Essay on Customs and Habits – Customs and habits are very closely related. “Habit means an acquired facility to act in a certain manner without resort to deliberation and thought”—MacIver and Page.
Persons tend to react in the manner to which they have become accustomed. Example: smoking, drinking coffee or tea regularly, reading newspaper daily, drinking liquors, morning exercises, shaving daily in the morning, etc.
Habit is a “second nature” with us. When once they are developed they tend to become permanent. Then it becomes difficult for us to act in a way different from the habitual ways. It is the strongly established and deeply rooted mode of response. As MacIver and Page have pointed out “habit is the instrument of life, it economises energy, reduces drudgery and saves the needless expenditure of thought”. Willian James has pointed out habit is “the enormous fly-wheel of society, and its most precious conservative agent”.
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Differences
(i) Custom is a social phenomenon whereas habit is an individual phenomenon.
(ii) Custom is socially recognised. Habit does not require such recognition.
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(iii) Custom is normative in nature. It has the sanction of the society. Habit is not normative and requires no external sanction.
(iv) Custom contributes to the stability of social order. Hence it is of great social importance. Habit can only facilitate individual activity. It has prominence only for the individual who is accustomed to it.
(v) Customs are socially inherited, whereas habits are learnt individually.