A different kind of nunnery

Abstract

In this article, we will attempt to demonstrate that sororities, like convents, which are voluntary total institutions, thriving on a high degree of self-regulatory changes in the thoughts, manners and attitudes of their members, depend for their success and perpetuation, on the maintenance of a family structure. Unlike other total institutions, sororities do not separate the individual from the intercourse with the outside by locked doors, or the walls of a ‘cloister’. They do so by a process of self and peer regulation, peer pressure, and almost constant demand by the organization for the time of its members.