Social order is a concept used in sociology, history and other social sciences that refers to a set of linked social structures, social institutions and social practices which conserve, maintain and enforce "normal" ways of relating and behaving.
A "social order" is a relatively persistent system of institutions, patterns of interactions and customs, capable of continually reproducing at least those conditions essential for its own existence. The concept refers to all those facts of society which remain relatively constant over time. These conditions could include both property, exchange and power relations, but also cultural forms, communication relations and ideological systems of values.
Social order as discussed in this article primarily refers to these structures and not to "order in society" with which it should not be confused. In this way, a society might be chaotic and dysfunctional but there is still a social order in a sheer sociological sense.
Read more about Social Order: Sociology, Principle of Extensiveness, Groups and Networks, Status Groups, Values and Norms, Power and Authority, Spontaneous Order, Social Honor, Attainment of Social Order
Famous quotes related to social order:
“The protection of a ten-year-old girl from her father’s advances is a necessary condition of social order, but the protection of the father from temptation is a necessary condition of his continued social adjustment. The protections that are built up in the child against desire for the parent become the essential counterpart to the attitudes in the parent that protect the child.”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)
“The earth is ready, the time is ripe, for the authoritative expression of the feminine as well as the masculine interpretation of that common social consensus which is slowly writing justice in the State and fraternity in the social order.”
—Anna Garlin Spencer (1851–1931)
“I’m tired of earning my own living, paying my own bills, raising my own child. I’m tired of the sound of my own voice crying out in the wilderness, raving on about equality and justice and a new social order.... Self-sufficiency is exhausting. Autonomy is lonely. It’s so hard to be a feminist if you are a woman.”
—Jane O’Reilly, U.S. feminist and humorist. The Girl I Left Behind, ch. 7 (1980)