35 pages • 1 hour read
Mary DouglasPurity and Danger
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1966A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 8 Summary: “Internal Lines”
Contrary to widespread belief, pollution has much to do with morals and ethics in primitive societies. Pollution rules do not always correspond exactly with moral rules; they highlight only “a small aspect of morally disapproved behavior” (160). Still, there is a definite relationship. Among the relevant moral situations are incest, homicide, adultery, filial disrespect, and etiquette between husband and wife and in-laws. Ritual sacrifices are often necessary to make reparation for offenses. Such rituals “can help to erase memory of the wrong and encourage the growth of right feeling” (168). If the ritual is not performed, danger is believed to fall upon the guilty party or even upon innocent people in his circle.
Chapter 8 Analysis
Here Douglas attempts to show that pollution has much to do with ethics and morality, contrary to what many early anthropologists believed. She cites several examples of how pollution may support moral values in primitive societies. The Nuer tribe in Africa believes that committing incest brings misfortune in the form of skin disease. In many societies, when a man's wife commits adultery, various persons are believed to suffer as a result: It may be the woman, her husband, the adulterer, or the couples’ children. Pollution danger falls upon fratricides in some societies. In order to reverse the effects of these offenses, various sacrifices or purification rites must be performed. Such rites can take one of two forms: the confessional rite, or the rite which makes no inquiry into the cause of the pollution and places no responsibility. In the latter case, purification or sacrifice alone is considered an adequate reparation.
Douglas outlines her view of society as a complex set of “Chinese boxes,” with systems and sub-systems expressing a hierarchy of relationships. A person guilty of pollution is doubly guilty—for crossing a line and for endangering other people: “It is my belief that people really do think of their own social environment as consisting of other people joined or separated by lines which must be respected” (172).
