Religion
Wealth is not the only social characteristic that defines an individual's ascribed status. Religion is also a factor that must be considered. If your family identifies with a particular religion be it Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, etc., you are identified as the same religion as your biological or adopted parents. An individual's religion or absence of religion then becomes apart of his or her ascribed status. The social norms of a particular religion may have different ascribed statuses than those that are given by the larger society that it assigns to its followers based on the religious doctrines that govern their belief. Ascribed status can also be closely linked with master status as they both involve what you were born with although master status is a broader term and looks at more topics than ascribed status. Another way to look at ascribed status is through the caste system in India.
Read more about this topic: Ascribed Status
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“Whenever a taboo is broken, something good happens, something vitalizing.... Taboos after all are only hangovers, the product of diseased minds, you might say, of fearsome people who hadn’t the courage to live and who under the guise of morality and religion have imposed these things upon us.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“There is more religion in men’s science than there is science in their religion.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Since belief is measured by action, he who forbids us to believe religion to be true, necessarily also forbids us to act as we should if we did believe it to be true.”
—William James (1842–1910)