The cable tow serves as both a binding covenant and a measurement of obligation 3. While it serves a physical purpose in the Entered Apprentice Degree 1, it acquires broader moral, symbolic, and practical meanings as a Mason progresses.
Symbolically, the cable tow acts as an aid, an urge to action, and a tie by which a brother may assist another on his journey 1. Waite describes it as representing the binding covenant of Masonry itself 3. From an esoteric perspective, Wilmshurst takes the cable-tow to signify the candidate's irreversible commitment to self-knowledge; once stirred by a desire for higher truth, an initiate cannot turn back on what he learns without committing moral suicide 2.
As a measurement, the length of the cable tow traditionally defined the distance within which a Mason was expected to answer a summons or attend lodge communications 13. In older times, this distance was commonly regarded as three miles 1. However, the Baltimore Masonic Convention of 1843 defined the length of a cable tow as "the scope of a brother's reasonable ability" 1. Waite similarly notes that the length signifies the extent of a Mason's ability to attend meetings and sets the reasonable limit of his obligation 3. Under this standard, the Craft does not demand the impossible, leaving each brother to determine what is just and reasonable according to his own circumstances 1.
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