Honour and shame in the Mediterranean

Abstract

'Honour' has come to represent a large variety of sociat sexuat economic, and political values which vary from one culture to another but whose importance should never be minimized. In Mediterranean society honour, accompanied by shame, has come to play a fundamental role in the very existence of most peripheral societies and has thus been one of the most popular themes of study by Mediterranean anthropologists. Attention has largely been given to honour as an economic phenomenon. As a concept, honour is found in any society since it has often been perceived by the notion of a person's worth for his own community. However, the term may have different values for different sets of people in different societies. Thus honour varies from one region to another, from one community to another, and, above all, it carries different connotations from one class of society to another. It is more than just a means of expressing approval or disapproval of a particular mode of behaviour and it often validates itself by an appeal to the fads. This condition may help to explain why the official recognition of a person's worth may often prove ambivalent to the rest of society. Therefore, when it is acknowledged by the people at large, the notion of honour presents no dilemma. But this argument is often unjustified largely because the individual's worth in society does not coincide with the view of the ruling elite as that of other groups within the same society. This may emerge owing to the differing evaluation of roles. Thus the qualities needed to exert leadership in a rural peripheral community are often different from those expected at the administrative centre of the community.