aethos

Updated: May 17, 2026

Latin mores and Greek aethos both refer to custom, to the things that are, and not to the things that "ought" to be, except in the indirect and secondary sense that whatever the members of the community, in the mass, actually do, is the thing that they feel they ought to do.

Havelock Ellis - Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 : Sex in Relation to Society