Revision summary
Stratification is durable structured inequality. Egalitarian bands limit surplus; ranked chiefdoms give hereditary honour. Class is relation to production (Marx) plus status and party (Weber). Caste ranks endogamous groups by purity and occupation; estates are legal orders. Slavery, social race, and gender are further axes; types mix in living societies.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
Social stratification is structured inequality that lasts beyond one lifetime. Types differ by how rank is inherited, justified, and closed. Simple societies are not all equal, but they are not all caste.
Body
Egalitarian and ranked
- Egalitarian bands, as among many foragers including parts of Andaman life, limit accumulation by sharing and ridicule. Age and sex still differentiate.
- Ranked societies give hereditary prestige without sharp economic classes. Trobriand chiefs and Kachin gumsa nobles sit above commoners. Sahlins contrasted this with Melanesian big-men who earn followings.
Class
- Marx defined class by relation to the means of production: owners and labourers. Peasant and landlord, factory owner and worker, are class types.
- Weber added status honour and party power. A poor Brahmin may have status without class wealth. Class is not only income.
Caste and estate
- Caste in India, as Dumont read in Homo Hierarchicus, ranks groups by purity and occupation, with endogamy and hereditary status. Srinivas stressed mobility through Sanskritisation and dominant caste, against a frozen book-view.
- Estates of feudal Europe (clergy, nobility, commoners) were legal ranks. They are a closed, law-written type, not the same as Indian jati.
Slavery, race, and gender
- Slavery and serfdom are extreme closed strata. Race as a social hierarchy, in colonial and American colour lines, stratifies without being a biological caste of genes.
- Gender and age stratify inside every type. Yanomami village rank and Nuer age-sets show that inequality need not be a state class system.
How types mix
- Modern India shows caste, class, and party together. A type is an analytic pole, not a people with only one inequality.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD STR[Stratification] --> E[Egalitarian band] STR --> R[Rank chiefdom] STR --> C[Class Marx Weber] STR --> CA[Caste Dumont] STR --> SL[Slavery race gender]
Conclusion
Stratification runs from sharing bands to rank, class, caste, estate, and slave systems. Examples from Trobriand, Kachin, Nuer, India, and industrial class show the range. Weber and Dumont name different axes of the same fact of rank.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Differences between Social Anthropology and Sociology.
Next question on this syllabus topic (2016 · Q1(a)). View answer →
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Is class the same as caste?
Class is economic position and can be more open. Caste is hereditary, often endogamous, and morally ranked.
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Do simple societies lack stratification?
Many lack class. Age, gender, and ritual rank still stratify persons.
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