Sorority Rituals - Reflections On Rites of ... - Mari Ann Callais
Sorority Rituals - Reflections On Rites of ... - Mari Ann Callais
Sorority Rituals - Reflections On Rites of ... - Mari Ann Callais
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
we are and giving meaning to us within our society” (p. 7). Sororities demonstrate this aspect <strong>of</strong><br />
ritual and its importance in development <strong>of</strong> sorority women.<br />
The other role <strong>of</strong> ritual as it relates to sororities is the aspect <strong>of</strong> communities as explained<br />
by Victor Turner in The Ritual Process:<br />
Broadly speaking, rituals generate, maintain and create order; but they do so in a peculiar<br />
way, by grounding the sense <strong>of</strong> order in something that is other than itself, something<br />
fundamentally at odds with order-namely participation in an undifferentiated care <strong>of</strong> life<br />
(p. 163).<br />
Sororities are communities who live and learn together. Ritual ceremonies not only bring the<br />
sorority members together in a physical assembly, but also tend to unite them emotionally. The<br />
ritual bonds sorority women in ways that create lifetime commitments to one another and to their<br />
sororities. This statement may be the most effective way to explain the role <strong>of</strong> ritual in sororities.<br />
Living the Ritual<br />
Putting the ritual into practice by living out the concepts represented in the rituals may be<br />
<strong>of</strong> greater interest to many than the actual performance. In many ways, these go hand and hand.<br />
Ritual as performance conveys the message <strong>of</strong> what the ritual ceremony is. If the ritual ceremony<br />
is performed with passion and conviction as expressed by Turner (1969) and others (Driver,<br />
1991), then those receiving the message can put the words and meanings into action. The phrase<br />
"living the ritual" conveys that if members <strong>of</strong> the group understand the meaning <strong>of</strong> the ritual and<br />
take seriously the commitments and promises made during the ceremony, then the "living" aspect<br />
may affect behavior and choices made by the individual members <strong>of</strong> the group.<br />
Ed King, currently considered by most in the fraternity and sorority world as the expert<br />
speaker on the college circuit on the topic <strong>of</strong> ritual and values, presents that ritual allows<br />
members <strong>of</strong> fraternities and sororities the opportunity to share their lives with one another. As<br />
45