Social Institutions

Social institutions provide the basic living arrangements that human beings work out in their interaction with one another and by means of which continuity is achieved across the generations.

Society has defined an organized way of pursuing an activity.It has a set of norms for each activity and the norms governing an activity is called institution.

Institution can be defined as set of norms to achieve some goal or activity that people feel is important.

The institutions of marriage,family and kinship are very important for the study of Anthropology.There are great variations in the family and marriage patterns across different cultures.

A family is a group of persons directly linked up by kin connections,the adult members take care for the children.Family as an institution refers to the system of normative patterns in which family group members interact and play their respective roles.Kinship ties are relations between individuals,established through marriage or through lines of descent.