Social Structure
Social structure refers to the organized patterns of interpersonal relationships and social institutions that shape a society. It often highlights the hierarchical arrangement of individuals into various classes based on factors such as wealth, power, or social roles. Social structures vary widely across cultures and nations, yet many share a common framework where individuals are expected to fulfill specific roles associated with their social group. The concept of social structure stems from early human socialization, where living and collaborating in groups enhanced survival. Over millennia, as humans evolved, more complex societies emerged, leading to the establishment of institutions like governments and religions, typically organized hierarchically.
Key elements of social structure include status and role. Status highlights a person's position within society, which can be ascribed (inherited) or achieved (earned through effort). Roles refer to the expected behaviors associated with different statuses, allowing societies to function smoothly. Historical examples, such as the social structures of ancient Egypt and Rome, illustrate how power was concentrated among a select few, with rigid frameworks that limited social mobility. Understanding social structure is essential for comprehending the dynamics and organization of any society, reflecting its values, norms, and power relations.
Social Structure
Social structure consists of the institutionalized interpersonal relationship norms established by the members of a society. Most often, social structure refers specifically to the hierarchical composition of a society, in which people are separated into classes by wealth, power, or other factors. Though social structures vary by country and culture, many are organized into hierarchies in which people of certain social groups are expected to fulfill corresponding roles.
History of Human Socialization
The complex social structures that can be found in nearly all civilizations are the product of natural human socialization. From the earliest days of the human species, people have found that they could survive more easily by living and collaborating with others in groups. This was understood even by the ancestors of modern primates such as humans and gorillas.
Some anthropologists—scientists who study humanity—have asserted that primates first began to become social about fifty-two million years BCE. At this time, humans’ mostly nocturnal ancestors began hunting during the day. While these primates had safely hunted alone in the darkness of night, daylight exposed them to more predators. To compensate for this increased danger, the primates began living and hunting in groups.
Over millions of years, as these primitive human ancestors evolved larger brains, they began forming more advanced social groups. Early humans started forming societal bonds with one another by gathering together for meals. With more complex brains, children spent more time maturing and childhood became longer. This created the need for parenting skills to develop in a home environment. Adults began sharing food and other resources with one another to help their society, as a whole, survive.
Gradually, these ancestors evolved into modern humans. With the development of the human brain came great advances in the structures of human societies. Established social groups began associating with other groups in distant geographical areas, mostly for commerce.
People eventually formed large institutions including governments and religion. Most of these institutions developed as hierarchies, meaning they were organized with the strongest or wealthiest holding the most power and the poor holding no power, with various levels of people between them. Human social structures have continued to follow this model into the twenty-first century.
Elements of Social Structures
Human social structures are composed of different elements at different levels. The smallest unit of a society is the individual, while the largest can be any of the intangible institutions people have built, such as governments, corporations, or churches.
Status
One important concept in the study of social structure is status. Status is defined most basically as the position occupied by a person in society. This refers primarily to someone’s job title—such as doctor, banker, or teacher—but also describes a person’s relationship to various other members of society. For example, a man may hold the status of a barber while simultaneously holding statuses as a son, husband, father, and brother. All of these status positions are known as a person’s status set.
Status as used in this context implies nothing about the esteem of the person’s positions. Other, more specific types of status are used for this purpose. Ascribed statuses, for instance, are the social categories into which one is born. Categories include sex, race, and parents’ social class, or level of society determined by wealth or influence. Achieved statuses are the positions people acquire through their own labor. Every society assigns its achieved statuses different levels of prestige. Someone who becomes a professor will usually be viewed more positively than someone who becomes a criminal.
Role
Another basic component of social structure is role. A role is the behavior that people in society expect of those with certain statuses. A person holding the status of student is expected to fulfill the roles of attending classes, completing homework, and studying for tests.
Roles may change depending on which status a person is occupying at a given moment. Someone acting as a student for a certain period may then begin shopping in a store and take on the status of a shopper. Now, society expects the person not to attend classes or take tests but to view various items for sale, take desired items to a cashier, and pay for them. This is a shopper’s role. Cashiers understand the role of shoppers relative to their own role, which is to take shoppers’ payments and give them their items. Knowing the roles of society’s numerous statuses allows civilizations to function.
Historical Social Structures
The ancient civilizations of Egypt and Rome featured highly complex social structures for their eras. Ancient Egypt was a classic case of a top-down social model. The most powerful entities in Egyptian society were the gods, such as Ra and Osiris. Beneath the gods were the pharaohs, monarchs who ruled the land and everyone in it.
Pharaohs were served by ordered chains of command. Nobles and priests carried out the administrative duties of the government. Below them were the pharaoh’s soldiers, followed by the scribes. The scribes’ skills in reading and writing made them valuable to the government. The remaining classes in ancient Egyptian society were merchants, artisans, farmers, and slaves.
Thousands of years later, in the first century CE, the social structure of the Roman Empire was much the same. In ancient Rome, wealthy, free, property-owning men held the highest places in society. They usually acquired their positions by heredity, which made social mobility difficult or impossible for the poor. Roman women were only slightly above slaves, as they were expected to care for the home and do little else. As the centuries passed, however, Roman society became markedly less rigid. Eventually, membership in the senate and even the position of Roman emperor were open to foreigners, something that would have been vehemently rejected in earlier times.
Bibliography
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