The morality of the modern world today is an interesting one. It takes no introduction to the differences in morality between the East and the West today. Does morality in fact have a direct link to our cultural history or mythology? Well, the answer to this question would be: not completely. The moral standards around the world has undergone slow inexorable changes to evolve into what we know of today.

It would be important to note that morality was no more than a basis on which ancient societies managed to perform optimally. These ancient cultures, at many times, fought for their survival, and in order for it to move on and progress, a certain set of rules had to be put down. So where does mythology come in? As mentioned in the introduction, very often mythology served man's end, in dictating how society should be run by way of fables, which related various morals.

After time, many of these morals became irrelevant as the shifting needs of the various societies changed. However, the mythology remained stagnant, continuing to dictate the same rules it started off with. As such, the power of mythology has still imposed various rules over society today that might not otherwise have been adopted by societies today.

One obvious example would be that of women and their place in home. Women, being weaker physically than men, were often made to stay at home, amongst other reasons as often depicted in mythology. However, without the rigours of the wilderness in today's society, the notions have remained the same, and it has taken quite some effort from female lobbyists to have changed this mindset that used to be ingrained in society just a century back.

Most of the moral codes in mythology had to do with marriage and sex. Such differences in morality, between East and West, comes intuitively with many eastern cultures, especially China. China's over-population in the country led to a stricter set of rules placed within their mythology to ensure the continued survival of their people, and to maintain order within society. This was accomplished with myths of unchanging love in the tale of the cowherd and the weaver, and punishment in various other myths. As such, the Chinese society today has taken a very conservative view of such issues of morality.

On the other hand, societies such as that of the Vikings were more liberal. In Norse mythology, the fertility goddess, Freyja, was at one point rather promiscuous and at one point slept with three dwarves for a night each. In effect, the society today reproaches the committers of infidelity less than the Eastern cultures. Morals, such as that of polygamy contrasted with monogamy, are also based in mythology.

Sex aside, mythology also sets down many standard morals in society by the use of stories. Innu mythology, for one, addresses problems such as incest, cannibalism, the need to share and arrogance. Through these stories they convey the notions to people, which have been carried on today, both by necessity and mythology.

A very important reason why mythology directly influenced these morals was the fact that mythology provided the prohibition that was needed to enforce the rules. This was done mainly in the area of retribution, where in Chinese and Japanese mythology people who had committed many transgressions were punished through various levels of hell. In Egyptian mythology, the hearts of the dead were weighed against a feather, determining if the person was to go to heaven or to hell.

Very similar to the criminal system we have in modern society today, mythology also had another form of deterrence with regards to crime. This came in the form of rehabilitation where through stories, people were encouraged to maintain a good set of morals in the style of learning from other's mistakes.

Morals were in itself a form of societal ideals, which is discussed separately. The rest of morality is discussed in the topic of lessons, which talks about how mythology provides many stories with underlying morals that are used till today to educate people, and to examine what we can learn by reading myths.

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