The origin of custom lies in two ideas: ‘the community is worth more than the individual’ and ‘an enduring advantage is to be preferred to a transient one’; from which it follows that the enduring advantage of the community is to take unconditional precedence over the advantage of the individual, especially over his momentary well-being but also over his enduring advantage and even over his survival. Even if the individual suffers from an arrangement which benefits the whole, even if he languishes under it, perishes by it – the custom must be maintained, the sacrifice offered
