Page 183 - Sociology and You

Section 3
Chapter 5 Social Structure and Society 153 Preindustrial Societies
Key Terms
• society
• hunting and gathering
• horticultural society • pastoral societies
• agricultural society
society
Types of Society
The culture and social struc- ture of a society are greatly affected by the way the society pro-
vides for basic needs. A society, as you may remember from Chapter 3, is composed of people living within defined territorial borders who share a common culture. Societies meet their members’ basic needs, such as the needs for food and shelter, in diffferent ways. These differences form the basis of a system anthropologists often use to classify societies. In this system, societies are classified as preindustrial, industrial, or postindustrial. We will look at preindustrial societies in this sec- tion and examine industrial and postindustrial societies in the fol- lowing sections.
In theory, a society is inde- pendent of outsiders. It contains enough smaller social structures— family, economy, and so forth—to
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Section
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The way a society provides for basic needs greatly affects its culture and social structure. Preindustrial, in- dustrial, and postindustrial societies meet basic needs in different ways. Preindustrial societies include hunting and gathering, horticultural, pastoral, and agricultural societies.
Even the earliest societies had patterned and predictable social
relationships.
society
people living within defined territorial borders and sharing a common culture
meet the needs of its members. As you will see, preindustrial societies actu- ally could be independent and self-sufficient. Modern societies, although ca- pable of caring for most members’ needs, must have political, military, economic, cultural, and technological ties with other societies. In fact, mod- ern societies are rapidly moving toward the creation of a global society.
In the next few pages, several basic types of societies will be distin- guished. Each type of society is unique in important ways. All societies, how- ever, are comprised of social structures. Members in each type of society know what is expected of them and what they can expect from others. Members of a particular type of society engage in the same basic social pat- terns time after time because they share patterned and predictable social re- lationships that are passed from generation to generation.