ABSTRACT
One important means of reducing field observations to order is through the customary laws of the society. The work of the first struc tural anthropologists was to write systematic accounts of social rules. The most impressive fact about the relatively isolated, homogeneous societies that were the subjects of these rule-writing accounts was their stability. Not only were they relatively unaffected by what little outside contact they had, but they contained "tension-handling mechanisms" that, through ritual or other means, prevented internal forces from disrupting their equilibrium.
