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

A number of participants did not believe that ritual had an impact on their behavior.
Many who responded in such a way expressed that they did not understand ritual nor enjoy it:
behavior:
I don’t really think any of our rituals apply to my daily life. Maybe the meaning of them
does I just don’t understand the meaning of them. As far as what I thought of them and
the stuff that I did because it was ritual, I don’t ever really think about it.
If we took a vote and I said: A is ceremony, B is incorporate into your life. I would say it
would probably be 60 / 40 with the majority saying ritual is just a ceremony. It is very
difficult because most girls come into the chapter and they see the sorority as just what I
am doing in college this is just for fun and a way to get scholarship and leadership
experience.
I honestly don't really think about sorority ritual in my everyday life. I don't usually think
about it except about ten or fifteen minutes past the ritual meetings but, then again, in my
sorority, we don't really do everything right. We don't really do ritual that often. What we
do do, we tend to down-size it a lot by making things really quicker, so for me it is hard
to say ritual really stands out outside of my chapter because we really don't do it.
There are a few women in my chapter who see ritual and who see initiation and the
ceremonies that we have to perform as a waste of time.
I think that are some members in my chapter that just see it as a ceremony and just think
it’s uhhhh. Then there are the ones that don’t really come around and you know they see
it more as like a pain to go to the ceremony. Then there are some that are just gung ho and
they influence the girls and how much they care about ritual.
There are definitely extremes in our chapter. There are definitely the girls that could fall
asleep during ritual and there are also girls who will cry because the girl sitting next to
her is sleeping and doesn’t feel the same way that she does.
One participant indicated that she wished that ritual did have more of an impact on her
Sometimes I wish that I would use ritual more in my daily life. When I go through the
ritual again I am reminded of everything that is special to me and it kind of makes me feel
a little bit guilty that I am not doing my best as a person and sometimes I wish that I could
do more as a sorority member. That kind of affects me.
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