fraternity

(frə-tûr'nĭ-tē)

1. A body of people associated for a common purpose or interest, such as a guild.
2. A group of people joined by similar backgrounds, occupations, interests, or tastes: the fraternity of bird watchers.
3. A chiefly social organization of men students at a college or university, usually designated by Greek letters.
4. Roman Catholic Church. A sodality.
5. The quality or condition of being brothers; brotherliness.

[Middle English fraternite, from Old French, from Latin frāternitās, from frāternus, fraternal. See fraternal.]

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For more information on fraternity and sorority, visit Britannica.com.

noun

A group of people united in a relationship and having some interest, activity, or purpose in common: association, club, confederation, congress, federation, fellowship, guild, league, order, organization, society, sorority, union. See group.

Definition: brotherhood; group united in interest
Antonyms: sisterhood, sorority

Brotherhood among a disparate body of people united in their interests, aims, beliefs, and so on. Although ‘fraternity’ was a political goal at a time when politics was dominated by men, no contemporary contrast with ‘sisterhood’ is intended by most of those who today embrace fraternity. The goal, rather, is to instantiate in the wider community the sorts of feelings for each other, and the sorts of behaviour towards each other, that brothers and sisters are taken to have or display. This has commonly been thought to be impossible without greater equality, and one defence of that value is that it facilitates fraternity. Characterizing the sentiment and behaviour need not romanticize the family. What appears to be intended is a conscious or unconscious setting aside of calculations of self-interest for a greater willingness to recognize that others, too, have their projects and concerns. To this extent ‘fraternity’ suggests greater altruism. But it also suggests some shared purposes, to be jointly pursued, so its antithesis would be self-absorption. In particular, perhaps, it suggests a common concern with the circumstances in which each person can develop most fully or most satisfyingly. Finally, it suggests a sense of belonging to a unit with which one can readily, if not naturally, identify: the community is a sort of extended family, rather than an ‘anonymous’ society outside it.

— Andrew Reeve

Most fraternities and sororities came into existence after the Civil War. The initial discriminatory practices of white-run fraternities and sororities encouraged African American and Jewish students to form their own "Greek" organizations. The Greek system reached its heyday in the 1920s, as college attendance levels soared, and declined during the nonconformist 1960s. Despite negative publicity over deaths and injuries during hazing, the system revived in the 1980s, but it failed to regain its former importance on most campuses. Greek organizations are the center of social life at some campuses, but by the early twenty-first century, increasing numbers of colleges and universities were banning them from campus.

Bibliography

Fass, Paula S. The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.

Giddings, Paula. In Search of Sisterhood: Delta Sigma Theta and the Challenge of the Black Sorority Movement. New York: Morrow, 1988.

Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz. Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.

Winston, Roger B., Jr., William R. Nettles III, and John H. Opper, Jr., eds. Fraternities and Sororities on the Contemporary College Campus. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987.

—Lynn Dumenil/D. B.

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• Extracurricular Activities and Concerns - fraternity: selective men’s social organization, usu. with its own residence, at college

Dansk (Danish)
n. - broderskab, broderforbund

Nederlands (Dutch)
studentencorps, gilde, broederorde, mensen met hetzelfde beroep, karakter etc., broederschap

Français (French)
n. - confrérie (parfois péj), confrérie (des médecins/des banquiers), (US, Univ) fraternité

Deutsch (German)
n. - Vereinigung, Studentenverbindung, Bruderschaft

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - αδελφότητα, οργάνωση, φοιτητική οργάνωση

Italiano (Italian)
associazione studentesca, fraternità, fratellanza

Português (Portuguese)
n. - irmandade (f), fraternidade (f)

Русский (Russian)
братство, община

Español (Spanish)
n. - asociación, club estudiantil, fraternidad, confraternidad, cofradía

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - broderskap, manlig studentförening (amer.)

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
友爱, 兄弟会, 互助会

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 友愛, 兄弟會, 互助會

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 우애 단체

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 兄弟の間柄, 友愛, 男子学生社交クラブ, 友愛会, 同業者仲間, 協同団体, 兄弟愛

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) أخويه , جمعيه , إخاء‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮אחווה, אגודה, ידידות‬

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