Sorority Rituals - Reflections On Rites of ... - Mari Ann Callais

During new member education, you learn the Greek alphabet, what your colors mean,
who your founders are and what date your sorority was founded, but you are not learning
these morals and standards that your sorority is about and what your founders founded
your sorority on. The initiation ceremony is where you really learn it all . . . it all ties into
the same one solid principle that overrides throughout your sorority.
Certain participants referenced the purpose of the ritual ceremony was to pass on the “tradition”
and was the main reason why their sorority existed:
the “future”:
Without our rituals, our sororities don’t exist. Ritual is continuing what was started one
hundred years ago and passing it onto the newer sisters.
One of the most interesting comments mentioned a tie between history as the “past” and
Ritual was designed to make the sorority more meaningful and to help you to understand
that what you are doing is important. Ritual is to pass on a sense of history with the
group. Ritual is like a template of where to go in the future. It is taking where we have
come from, where we are now and we are going.
These references to ritual as “tradition” establishes the participants’ understanding that they
participate in an experience that connects them to the past and to the future.
Ritual as a Required Activity
Several of the participants indicated that they saw the ritual ceremonies as another
activity that was part of their sorority experience. The participants perceived the ritual
ceremonies as an activity that they were required do in order to be considered an active member
of the sorority. Some of the participants indicated that monetary penalties were imposed on
members if they did not participate in ritual:
Our rituals are mandatory so when you don’t come, you get fined. And I think that is why
a lot of people feel like they have to be there and they don’t really want to be and they
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