[The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen]@TWC D-Link book
The Theory of the Leisure Class

CHAPTER Twelve ~~ Devout Observances
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Also the garments worn by the lay members of the community when they come into the presence, should be of a more expensive kind than their everyday apparel.

Here, again, the parallelism between the usage of the chieftain's audience hall and that of the sanctuary is fairly well marked.

In this respect there is required a certain ceremonial "cleanness" of attire, the essential feature of which, in the economic respect, is that the garments worn on these occasions should carry as little suggestion as may be of any industrial occupation or of any habitual addiction to such employments as are of material use.
This requirement of conspicuous waste and of ceremonial cleanness from the traces of industry extends also to the apparel, and in a less degree to the food, which is consumed on sacred holidays; that is to say, on days set apart--tabu--for the divinity or for some member of the lower ranks of the preternatural leisure class.

In economic theory, sacred holidays are obviously to be construed as a season of vicarious leisure performed for the divinity or saint in whose name the tabu is imposed and to whose good repute the abstention from useful effort on these days is conceived to inure.

The characteristic feature of all such seasons of devout vicarious leisure is a more or less rigid tabu on all activity that is of human use.


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