The difficulty in the case appears to be a moral difficulty, not a mental or a pecuniary one, and assuredly not a physical difficulty, since the relation in question is not a physical relation.

It would appear to be of the moral order of things, in that sense of the term in which conventional proprieties are spoken of as moral.

That is to say, it is a question of conforming to current expectations under a code of conventional proprieties.

Like much of the conventional code of behavior this patriotic attachment has the benefit of standardised decorum, and its outward manifestations are enjoined by law.

All of which goes to show how very seriously the whole matter is regarded.
And yet it is also a matter of common notoriety that large aggregates of men, not to speak of sporadic individuals, will on occasion shift their allegiance with the most felicitous effect and with no sensible loss of self-respect or of their good name.