A man's indebtedness is not virtue; his repayment is. Virtue begins when he dedicates himself actively to the job of gratitude.

Societies all have social norms that they follow; some allow more expression when dealing with death such as mourning while other societies are not allowed to acknowledge it. Due to his illness the family moved back to Norwich New York to the farm of Ruth’s maternal grandparents the Shattucks. One of the reasons Mead and Benedict got along well was because they both shared a passion for their work and they each felt a sense of pride at being a successful working woman during a time when this was uncommon.

She became the first woman to be recognized as a prominent leader of a learned profession. She studied the relationships between personality art language and culture insisting that no trait existed in isolation or self-sufficiency a theory which Ruth Benedict championed in her 1934 Patterns of Culture. D and joining the faculty in 1923.