Actually, that was the point they were making. If you don't know the reason behind the country's cultural events you are at a loss to understand their relevance to way that particular society works or worked.

For instance, and I'm using a non-religious example here, the long summer holiday from school was brought in, not for the benefit of the teachers or children, but because it was predominantly an agricultural society in the days, when universal education was being set up, and the children provided cheap labour on the farms. It was understood that the children would not turn up for school because they and their parents would be out working in the fields. The power of the landed gentry ensured that their cheap labour, which they had relied upon since before the days of serfdom probably, would be available to them at the time they would need it the most! Nowadays, everyone complains that the children have nothing to do from July to September simply because sending them out to lift potatoes or bring in the sheaves is no longer an option. The parents end up spending a small fortune trying to entertain, send to a nursery, summer camp, holiday, etc., their children, who in former years, would have been gainfully, albeit shamefully, employed to add a pittance to their family income!