📘 Chapter 3: Understanding Social Institutions

1. What are Social Institutions?

• Institutions are structured patterns of behaviour and established systems that fulfill basic needs of society.

• Examples: Family, Marriage, Kinship, Religion, Education, Economy, State.

• They regulate behaviour through norms and values.

2. Importance of Social Institutions

1. Provide order and stability in society.

2. Fulfil basic human needs (food, shelter, reproduction, learning).

3. Transmit culture across generations.

4. Define roles, rights, and duties.

5. Control behaviour through norms and sanctions.

3. Major Social Institutions

(a) Family

• Primary social institution.

• Functions: reproduction, socialisation, care and support, emotional security.

• Types:

  • Nuclear / Joint family.

  • Patriarchal / Matriarchal.

• Changes: industrialisation, urbanisation, women empowerment → shift towards nuclear families.

(b) Marriage

• Socially approved relationship between man and woman (or partners in modern context).

• Functions: regulation of sex, reproduction, alliance between families.

• Forms: monogamy, polygamy, polyandry, arranged vs love marriage.

(c) Kinship

• Relations by blood, marriage, or adoption.

• Types: Lineal (parents, children) and Collateral (siblings, cousins).

• Kinship defines obligations, inheritance, property rights.

(d) Religion

• System of beliefs, practices, and rituals related to the sacred.

• Functions:

  • Provides meaning to life.

  • Promotes social cohesion.

  • Controls behaviour through moral values.

• Sociologists’ views:

  • Durkheim → religion strengthens social solidarity.

  • Marx → religion is “opium of the people.”

  • Weber → religion influences economy (e.g., Protestant ethics and capitalism).

(e) Education

• Formal and informal transmission of knowledge, skills, and values.

• Functions:

  • Socialisation.

  • Social mobility.

  • Creation of skilled manpower.

• Issues: inequality, lack of access, digital divide.

(f) Economic Institutions

• Concerned with production, distribution, and consumption.

• Types: capitalist, socialist, mixed economies.

• Define property relations and division of labour.

(g) Political Institutions (State)

• Regulates power, authority, law, and order.

• Functions:

  • Law-making and enforcement.

  • Protection of rights.

  • Welfare schemes.

• Forms: monarchy, democracy, dictatorship.

🔑 Key Terms

• Institution, Family, Marriage, Kinship, Religion, Education, Economy, State.