Page 268 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Unit 13: Changing Dimensions of Social Stratification

the upper and the lower classes. Middle classes are also not monolith. New status groups are Notes
emerging as classes.
Status Groups
The concept of “status groups” is applied by Max Weber while distinguishing between “class,
status and party” as three orders of society, namely, economic, social and political. Weber defines
“social status” as a typically effective claim to positive or negative privilege with respect to social
prestige so far as it rests on one or more of the following bases :
(a) Mode of living.
(b) A formal process of education accompanied by empirical or rational training and the
acquisition of the corresponding modes of life.
(c) The prestige of birth, or of an occupation.
The primary manifestations in real life can be seen in the practice of connubium, commensality
and exclusive appropriation of privileged economic opportunities, and also prohibition of certain
modes of acquisition. There are also certain conventions or traditions attached to a social status.
Property, income or even poverty are not disqualifications for high social status.
Though the economic factors may influence social status and vice versa, social status may partly
or even wholly determine class status, without, however, being identical with it. People may have
different class statuses or economic standings, but they may enjoy the same social status based on
the same mode of life in all relevant respects as a result of their common education as status
groups do not function through the sheer market principle.

A caste is the best example of a status group. A stratificatory system characterized by
caste is based on the criteria of exclusion and inclusion, ascription based on birth, hereditary
occupation, distinct modes of life of different caste groups, and on a fixed notion of status
and prestige.

Status Honour
In contrast to classes, status groups are normally communities, generally, of an amorphous kind.
In contrast to “class situation”, Weber mentions existence of a “status situation”, which is based
on social estimation of a given honour, of a specific, positive or negative kind. A given status
situation is shared by a plurality, and it can be close to a class situation. Class distinctions are
linked in the most varied ways with status distinctions. Property as such is not always recognized
as a status qualification, but in the long run it is, and with extraordinary regulatory. Honorific
preference is the key to status honour. The point is that status honour need not necessarily be
linked with a “class situation”. On the contrary, it normally stands in sharp opposition to the
pretensions of sheer property.
Both propertied and propertyless people can belong to the same status group, and frequently they
do it with very tangible consequence. This “equality” of social esteem may, however, in the long
run, become quite precarious. A rich man may not treat his servant equal, just because he is as
much educated as he is.
In content, status honour is normally expressed by the fact that above all else a specific style of life
can be expected from all those who wish to belong to the circle. Linked with this expectation are
restrictions on “social” intercourse. These restrictions may confine normal marriages within the
status circle and may lead to complete endogamous enclosure. India’s caste system prescribes

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