Primitive Human Institutions

69:1.1All hu­man in­sti­tu­tions min­is­ter to some so­cial need, past or pres­ent, not­with­stand­ing that their overde­vel­op­ment un­fail­ingly de­tracts from the worth-while­ness of the in­di­vid­ual in that per­son­al­ity is over­shad­owed and ini­tia­tive is di­min­ished. Man should con­trol his in­sti­tu­tions rather than per­mit him­self to be dom­i­nated by these cre­ations of ad­vanc­ing civ­i­liza­tion.

69:1.2Hu­man in­sti­tu­tions are of three gen­eral classes:

69:1.31. The in­sti­tu­tions of self-main­te­nance. These in­sti­tu­tions em­brace those prac­tices grow­ing out of food hunger and its as­so­ci­ated in­stincts of self-preser­va­tion. They in­clude in­dus­try, prop­erty, war for gain, and all the reg­u­la­tive ma­chin­ery of so­ci­ety. Sooner or later the fear in­stinct fos­ters the es­tab­lish­ment of these in­sti­tu­tions of sur­vival by means of taboo, con­ven­tion, and re­li­gious sanc­tion. But fear, ig­no­rance, and su­per­sti­tion have played a promi­nent part in the early ori­gin and sub­se­quent de­vel­op­ment of all hu­man in­sti­tu­tions.

69:1.42. The in­sti­tu­tions of self-per­pet­u­a­tion. These are the es­tab­lish­ments of so­ci­ety grow­ing out of sex hunger, ma­ter­nal in­stinct, and the higher ten­der emo­tions of the races. They em­brace the so­cial safe­guards of the home and the school, of fam­ily life, ed­u­ca­tion, ethics, and re­li­gion. They in­clude mar­riage cus­toms, war for de­fense, and home build­ing.

69:1.53. The in­sti­tu­tions of self-grat­i­fi­ca­tion. These are the prac­tices grow­ing out of van­ity pro­cliv­i­ties and pride emo­tions; and they em­brace cus­toms in dress and per­sonal adorn­ment, so­cial us­ages, war for glory, danc­ing, amuse­ment, games, and other phases of sen­sual grat­i­fi­ca­tion. But civ­i­liza­tion has never evolved dis­tinc­tive in­sti­tu­tions of self-grat­i­fi­ca­tion.

69:1.6These three groups of so­cial prac­tices are in­ti­mately in­ter­re­lated and minutely in­ter­de­pen­dent the one upon the other. On Uran­tia they rep­re­sent a com­plex or­ga­ni­za­tion which func­tions as a sin­gle so­cial mech­a­nism.