Meaning: The term society is the most fundamental concept in sociology. It is derived from the Latin word ‘socius’, meaning companionship or friendship. MacIver and Page defined it simply as “the web of social relationships”. It highlights that man is a social animal who cannot live alone.

Characteristics of Society:

• The Group of Groups: Society is not just a crowd; it is a system made up of innumerable groups like families, neighborhoods, and political parties that collect together.
• A Web of Social Relations: It involves reciprocal contacts between people, such as the relationship between a teacher and student or doctor and patient.
• Similarity or Likeness: People in a society share similarities in needs, works, aims, and values, which inspires them to live together with mutual intimacy and co-operation.
• Differences in Society: While people are similar, there are also natural differences in their talents, intelligence, and occupations (like farmers, doctors, engineers).
• Co-Operation and Division of Labour: People must co-operate to share joys and sorrows. Tasks are divided based on ability, age, and sex to perform work more efficiently.
• Interdependence: Individuals and communities depend on each other to satisfy their wants and goals.
• Social Control: Society uses informal means (like customs) and formal means (like laws and police) to control the behavior of its members and maintain stability.
• Society is Dynamic: No society remains constant. It keeps changing, with old institutions dying and new ones forming.

Definition: According to E.S. Bogardus, “Community is a Social Group with some degree of ‘we feeling’ and living in a given area”. Examples include a tribe, a village, or a city.

Elements (Characteristics) of Community:

• Locality or Geographical Area: A community must occupy a specific physical area. A group only becomes a community when it resides permanently in a definite locality, which provides safety and promotes common interests.
• Community Sentiment: This is a feeling of belongingness towards the local group. According to MacIver and Page, it has three main ingredients:
  1. We Feeling: A sense of communion where people identify with others.
  2. Role-Feeling: The feeling that everyone has a specific role or function to fulfill in the community.
  3. Dependency Feeling: The feeling that an individual is physically and psychologically dependent on the community.
• Stability or Relative Permanence: Unlike a temporary crowd, a community represents permanent life in a definite territory.
• Naturalness: Communities grow spontaneously in a natural way over time; they are not deliberately created or planned.
• Size of the Community: It can be small (like a village) or big (like a city or nation).
• Social Control: Communities regulate member behavior through informal means (customs) in rural areas and formal means (laws) in urban areas.
• A Specific Name: Every community has its own distinct name and identity.

Definition: According to E.S. Bogardus, “Association is usually working together of people to achieve some common purpose”. Examples include a trade union, a political party, or a student union.

Characteristics of Association:

• A Human Group: It is basically a social group formed by people. However, unlike a random crowd, it is an organized group.
• Specific Interest or Interests: It consists of individuals who have the same interests. For example, people with political interests join political parties.
• Co-Operative Spirit: Members must work together cooperatively to fulfill their common objectives.
• Organized Group: It is an organized collection where status and roles are distributed among its members to give the association stability.
• Regulation of Relations: Every association has its own rules, regulations, and norms to control the behavior of its members.
• Element of Stability: It can be permanent (like a trade union) or purely temporary (like an association formed just to felicitate a writer).

Definition: According to P.B. Harton and C.L. Hunt, “An Institution is an organised cluster of folkways and mores centred around a major human activity”. Examples include family, marriage, education, and religion. It is a mode or mean of service, not just a membership group.

Characteristics of Institution:

• Universal: They are found everywhere and at all stages of social development. No society exists without basic institutions like family or property.
• Standardised Norms: Institutions prescribe standardized procedures, rules, and ways of doing things, like the established rules in a school or a marriage.
• Controlling Mechanism: They act as a mechanism to control human behavior, preserving social order and stability.
• Relatively Permanent: They do not change rapidly. They change gradually over time and often become conservative elements in society.
• Abstract in Nature: Institutions are not visible, tangible objects you can touch. You cannot put ‘marriage’ or ‘religion’ in a museum.
• Oral and Written Traditions: In simple societies, they exist as oral customs. In modern societies, they exist as written laws, constitutions, and sacred texts.
• Symbolic Traits: They have symbols. A nation has a flag, a religion has a holy cross or crescent, and a marriage has a ring or mangal-sutra.
• Interrelated: Institutions are linked together. Understanding religion or politics requires understanding the other linked institutions.

Definition: According to R.K. Merton, a group refers to “a number of people who interact with one another in definite ways. Feel that they belong to the group, and are regarded by others as members of the group.” Examples include family, peer groups, and factory workers.

Characteristics of Social Groups:

• Collection of Interacting Individuals: It is not just a random collection of people. The members must have social interaction with each other.
• Sense of Group Unity and Solidarity: Members are tied together by a sense of unity, loyalty, and belongingness, maintained by regular social contacts.
• Group Goals and Interests: Groups are formed so members can fulfill common interests and realize shared objectives.
• Stronger Than Individual Members: A group has a reality of its own. As a collective, groups are stronger, have greater withstanding capacity, and last longer than an individual member.
• Group Norms: Every group has written or unwritten rules (like customs, laws, or traditions) that members must follow.
• Size of the Group: A group can be as small as two people (a dyad, like a husband and wife) or as large as a political party with lakhs of members.
• Groups are Dynamic: They are subject to change. Old members die, new ones are born, small groups grow, and group goals change over time.
• Degree of Stability: Some are purely temporary (like a crowd or audience), while others are relatively permanent (like trade unions).

Definition: Introduced by E.A. Ross, social control refers to the techniques and strategies used by society to regulate human conduct and maintain order. According to Ogburn and Nimkoff, it refers to “the patterns of pressure which a society exerts to maintain order and established rules”.

Features (Nature) of Social Control:

• It is Universal: Where there is society, there is social control. It exists even in ancient or barbaric societies.
• It Denotes Influence: This influence is exercised through various ways like public opinion, religion, morality, and law.
• Exerted by the Society: The influence is exerted by the whole society over smaller groups, or by a dominant group over individuals.
• Promotes General Welfare: The influence is used to serve the general interests of everyone and to stop dangerous, selfish behaviors.
• It is Very Old: Social control has existed since times immemorial. Without it, no society could hold its members together.

(Additional Note – Purposes): The main purposes of social control are to bring about social conformity (making people follow the rules), ensure social solidarity (integrating different groups to avoid clashes), and maintain the continuity of the society across generations.

Definition: A concept introduced by C.H. Cooley. He defined primary groups as those characterized by intimate, face-to-face association and co-operation. They are the building blocks of human society. Examples include family, children’s playgroups, and close friends.

Characteristics of Primary Groups:

• Dominance of Face-to-Face Relationships: Members have close, intimate, direct relationships where everyone knows everyone else’s name, status, and background.
• Small in Size: They consist of only a few members. This small size is necessary to keep relations close and personal.
• Physical Proximity (Nearness): Members usually reside in a particular area permanently, making it easy to see and talk with each other and exchange ideas.
• Durability: They are relatively permanent groups. The longer the group stays together, the deeper the contacts become.
• Similarity of Background: Members usually share a similar background and level of experience, allowing each to contribute to the group.
• Shared Interest: Members are held together by shared interests and work together for a common cause, creating a strong emotional bond.

Definition: According to Ogburn and Nimkoff, secondary groups are “Groups which provide experience lacking in intimacy”. Relationships here are formal, impersonal, and task-oriented. Examples include a factory, a trade union, or a political party.

Characteristics of Secondary Groups:

• Dominance of Secondary Relations: Relationships are formal, indirect, and impersonal. An individual is seen as someone filling a role (like a teacher or worker) rather than as a close personal friend.
• Large in Size: They are generally much larger than primary groups, sometimes having thousands of members, like an international association.
• No Physical Basis: Members do not need to live near each other. They can be scattered over a vast geographical area.
• Voluntary Membership: Membership is mostly voluntary. Individuals have the freedom to join or leave groups like political parties or sports clubs at will.
• Specific Ends and Interests: They are often called ‘special interest groups’ because they are formed specifically to achieve certain specific goals.
• Formal Group Control: Informal control (like morals) is less effective here. They rely on formal means of social control like laws, police, and courts to regulate member behavior.

Definition: The term was introduced by W.G. Sumner. It literally means “the ways of the folk or people”. According to Gillin and Gillin, “Folkways are behaviour patterns of everyday life which generally arise unconsciously in a group”. Examples include our habits of eating, dressing, walking, and greeting others.

Characteristics of Folkways:

• Social in Nature: They are the product of group life. New generations learn them partly by teaching but mainly by simply observing everyday life.
• Unplanned Origin: Their origin is obscure. They arise automatically and unconsciously without any advance planning.
• Informal Enforcement: They are not strictly obligatory like laws. If someone violates a folkway, they are not punished by any formal means (like police).
• Innumerable: There are so many diverse folkways in history that it is impossible to list all of them in an encyclopedia.
• Subject to Change: They are dynamic. They change as social conditions change, though some change rapidly while others resist change.

Definition: “Mores” is a Latin term representing highly respected or sacred customs. According to MacIver and Page, “When the folkways have added to them conceptions of group welfare, standards of right and wrong they are converted into mores”. They are customs necessary for a group’s survival. Examples include respecting elders, speaking the truth, and protecting children.

Characteristics of Mores:

• Regulators of Social Life: They are considered morally right, and violating them is morally wrong. They put strong restrictions on our behavior and are very compulsive.
• Relatively More Persistent: They are long-lasting and often act as conservative elements in society that resist change.
• Vary from Group to Group or Time to Time: What is prescribed in one group might be forbidden in another. Also, what was moral in the past (like the practice of “Sati”) may be considered immoral and illegal today.
• Backed by Values and Religion: They often receive strong backing from religious sanctions (like the Ten Commandments in Christianity or the Eight Principles in Buddhism), making them even more powerful and binding.

Definition: Law is the most powerful formal means of social control in modern society. According to Ian Robertson, “A law is simply a rule that has been formally enacted by a political authority and it backed by the power of the state”. They only appear in societies that have a government.

Characteristics of Law:

• They are only found in politically organized societies.
• They must be deliberately enacted by a proper law-making political authority through careful planning.
• Laws are always written, definite, clear, precise, and recorded.
• They apply equally to all people without exception in identical circumstances.
• If a person violates a law, they will face penalties and punishments determined by the state authority.
• They are not created based on the voluntary consent of the people they are directed against.
• Laws are dynamic and can be changed by the political authority.

Societies before the modern era can be divided into four main types:

• Hunting and Food Gathering Societies: These consisted of small numbers of people who survived entirely by hunting animals, fishing, and gathering edible plants. There were very few differences among people besides age and gender.
• Agrarian Societies: These were small rural communities without towns or cities. People gained their livelihood mainly through agriculture, sometimes supplemented by hunting. They were ruled by a chief, and inequalities existed.
• Pastoral Societies: Ranging from a few hundred to many thousands of people, these societies depended completely on tending and raising domesticated animals for survival. They were ruled by a chief or warrior kings and had distinct inequalities.
• Traditional Societies (Civilizations): Existing from 6000 B.C. to the 19th century, these were large societies based on agriculture, but they also had some cities where trade was concentrated. They were headed by a king or emperor and had major class inequalities.

Societies in the modern world are divided into four main types:

• First World Societies: Existing since the 18th century, these are based heavily on industrial production and free enterprise. The majority of people live in cities. They include western nations, Japan, and Australia. Class inequalities exist but are less pronounced than in traditional societies.
• Second World Societies: Existing from the early 20th century to the 1990s, these were industrial societies but their economic systems were centrally planned and controlled by the government (like the Soviet Union). They are now transforming into free enterprise systems.
• Developing Societies (Third World): The majority of the population still works in agriculture using traditional methods. They include countries like China, India, and most African nations. Some have free enterprise, while others are centrally planned.
• Newly Industrialised Societies: Emerging since the 1970s, these are former developing societies that are now based on industrial production and free enterprise (like South Korea, Brazil, and Singapore). Most people live in cities, but their per capita income is less than first world societies.

Organized Groups: Also known as associational groups, these are established through a formally articulated process. Examples include political parties, universities, and companies.
Characteristics:

• They have common interests and goals (e.g., a college fulfills educational interests).
• They have a strong element of formal organization to help people pursue goals.
• They can be small (a family) or massive (a trade union).
• They are highly durable and stable, allowing members to cooperate over a long time.
• They have a defined structure, which can be simple or highly complex like a business corporation.

Unorganized Groups: These lack any formal organization, planning, or defined pattern of interaction. Examples include crowds, mobs, and audiences.
Characteristics:

• They completely lack organization, meaning they have no definite leader, rules, or plan of action.
• They are spontaneous in origin; they form suddenly without careful planning.
• They have a very short life span and are purely temporary (e.g., people in a market disperse quickly).
• Because there are no rules, people in a crowd may behave in unpredictable ways, feeling a sense of mass strength.

Sociologists use various criteria to classify groups:

• In-Groups and Out-Groups (by W.G. Sumner): An ‘in-group’ is the “We-group” that a person belongs to and identifies with (like their own family or religion). An ‘out-group’ is the “They-group” that the person does not belong to.
• Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft (by Ferdinand Tonnies): ‘Gemeinschaft’ represents a community with intimate, private living (like a rural village). ‘Gesellschaft’ represents a formal association with specific, utilitarian relationships (like a business corporation).
• Voluntary and Involuntary Groups (by Charles A. Ellwood): Involuntary groups are those a person is born into and has no control over (like race or caste). Voluntary groups are those a person is free to join or leave (like a sports club).
• Horizontal and Vertical Groups (by P.A. Sorokin): Horizontal groups are large and inclusive (like a whole nation). Vertical groups are smaller divisions that give a person their rank (like a specific economic class or caste).