those things that are considered necessary for a decent life
See full dictionary entry for decencies
Examples of 'the decencies' in a sentence
the decencies
This was the reality glossed over in television fiction; indignity, suspicion, denial of the decencies.
Murray, Stephen DEATH AND TRANSFIGURATION
Their accounts are poignant because they are set against, because they contrast with, the decencies and the beauties and the quietness of the traditional past.
The Times Literary Supplement (2017)
Crucially, these are not primarily received values, imposed from on high, but virtues that push up from below, deriving from the decencies of ordinary life.