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Fraternity (Latin frater: brother) is a brotherhood, though the term usually connotes a distinct or formal organization.

The only true distinction between a fraternity and any other form of social organization is the implication that the members freely associate as equals for a mutually beneficial purpose, (rather than because of a religious, governmental, commercial, or familial bond, although there are fraternities dedicated to each of these topics).

In most instances, they are limited to male membership, but that is not always the case, and there are mixed male and female, and even wholly female fraternities. Such as, for general fraternities, Grande Loge Mixte de France, Honorable Fraternity of Ancient Freemasons, Grande Loge Feminine de France, Order of the Eastern Star, for college and university fraternities, Alpha Phi International, Delta Delta Delta.

Fraternities can be organized for many purposes, including university education, work skills, ethics, ethnicity, religion, politics, charity, chivalry, other standards of personal conduct, asceticism, service, performing arts, family command of territory, and even crime. There is almost always an explicit goal of mutual support; and while there have been fraternal orders for well-off in society, there have also been very many fraternities for those in the lower ranks of society, (especially for national or religious minorities). Trade unions also grew out of fraternities, such as the Knights of Labor.

The ability to organize freely apart from the institutions of government and religion were a fundamental part of the establishment of the modern world. In Living the Enlightenment, Margaret C. Jacobs showed the development of Jurgen Habermas' 'public space' in 17th century Netherlands was closely related to the establishment of lodges of Freemasons.

History

There are known fraternal organizations which existed as far back as ancient Greece and Rome, and analogous institutions called confraternities which existed allied to the Catholic Church in the late medieval period.

The development of Freemasonry in the early 1700s became a critical watershed moment in fraternal organization, and there have been hundreds of varieties of Freemasonry, and thousands of closely parallel organizations since then. Virtually any fraternal organizations today bear some debt to the models of organization first worked out in Masonic lodges.

The development was especially dynamic in America, where the freedom to associate outside governmental regulation is expressly sanctioned in law.There have been hundreds of fraternal organizations in America alone, and at the turn of the last century, there were enough memberships for every adult male, (because of multiple memberships, probably only 50% of adult males belonged to any organizations). Arthur M. Schlesinger coined the term 'a nation of joiners' to refer to the phenomenon in October 1944. Schlesinger in turn referred to de Tocqueville's commentary on American reliance on private organization dating back to the 1830s.

There are many attributes that fraternities can have, or not depending on their structure and purpose. Fraternities can have differing degrees of secrecy, some form of initiation or ceremony marking admission, formal codes of behavior, disciplinary procedures, very differing amounts of real property and assets.

College and university fraternities

Fraternities have a long history in colleges and universities, and form a major component of the whole range of fraternities. In Europe, students have been organized in nations and corporations since the beginnings of the modern university in the late medieval period, but the situation can differ greatly by nation.

In the United States, fraternities in colleges date to the 1820s, but did not fully assume an established pattern until the 1840s. They were strongly influenced by the patterns set by Freemasonry. The main difference between the older European organizations and the American organizations is that the American student societies virtually always include initiations, the formal use of symbolism, and the lodge-based organizational structure, (chapters), derived from usages in Freemasonry.).

References

1. Jacob, Margaret C. (1991). Living the Enlightenment: Freemasonry and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Europe. New York, New York: Oxford University Press.
2. Stevens, Albert C. (1907). Cyclopedia of Fraternities: A Compilation of Existing Authentic Information and the Results of Original Investigation as to the Origin, Derivation, Founders, Development, Aims, Emblems, Character, and Personnel of More Than Six Hundred Secret Societies in the United States. E. B. Treat and Company.
3. NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449, 460 (1958)
4. Stevens, Albert C. (1907). Cyclopedia of Fraternities: A Compilation of Existing Authentic Information and the Results of Original Investigation as to the Origin, Derivation, Founders, Development, Aims, Emblems, Character, and Personnel of More Than Six Hundred Secret Societies in the United States. E. B. Treat and Company.
5. Schlesinger, Arthur M. (October 1944). "Biography of a Nation of Joiners". American Historical Review. L (1). Washington, D.C.: American Historical Association: 1.
6. Stevens, Albert C. (1907). Cyclopedia of Fraternities: A Compilation of Existing Authentic Information and the Results of Original Investigation as to the Origin, Derivation, Founders, Development, Aims, Emblems, Character, and Personnel of More Than Six Hundred Secret Societies in the United States. E. B. Treat and Company.

• Fraternal and service organizations