Anthropologists consider marriage and kinship to be the guiding principles in every society and thus, they usually form the foundation of the social order. However, given that marriage and kinship ties are sometimes inadequate to solve the issues related to human survival, human beings also form groups along social lines. The goal of the reading is to give a detailed account of the formation of social groups by gender and age, common interests, and social status.
Grouping by gender occurs in all human societies with tasks being shared or segregated between men and women according to the cultures (Haviland, Prins and McBride 247). People may also be grouped based on their interests, including associations that occur in the digital age where people join associations where they would most likely participate in activities to pursue their interests. In stratified societies, people are grouped from a social status where the different levels of people are not endowed equally regarding resources. Members of the lower social classes have fewer resources, leading to “less power and lower prestige” than those in higher ranks (Haviland, Prins and McBride 259). As such, all societies have social groups that are based on different factors.
The main strength of the reading is that it gives an in-depth and clear understanding of the division of social groups across different lines, including gender and age, common interests, and social status. Additionally, the clarity of the reading is further enhanced by the inclusion of well-demonstrated examples of social groups and their divisions. Such real-life examples enhance the reliability of the reading. However, the reading is affected by the weakness of the subjective example of the racial segregation in South Africa that could be considered a forced form of social division and might be less fit in the specific topic in the context of the reading.
Works Cited
Haviland, William A., Harald EL Prins, Bunny McBride, and Dana Walrath. Cultural Anthropology: The Human Challenge. Cengage Learning, 2013.
