Social Stratification
... of people within a society who possess the same socioeconomic status. Besides being important in social theory, the concept of class as a collection of individuals sharing similar economic circumstances has been widely used in censuses and in studies of social mobility. (Encyclopedia Britannica). Which is based primarily on material possessions or money stature. In a Class System you can achieve more or go up the ladder. You can be born in a class by what your parents have achieved but you can either go up or down depending on what you accomplish in your life. A class system is not as rigid as the other three systems. Slavery: Whose essential characteristic is “ownership of some people by others” (Sociology, Down-to –Earth Approach, pg. 231). First I want to touch on the causes of slavery. Slavery was not solely based on racism, but there were three other factors involved. The first being “debt”. Creditors could enslave people when they couldn’t pay their debts. The second was crime, a family of a murdered victim could enslave the person who committed the crime as compensation. The third was war. The group that “won” would take the other group and enslave them as punishment. The first people to be enslaved by war were women. (” (Sociology, Down-to –Earth Approach, pg.231). Depending on the country, the conditions of slavery varied widely. Israel would set slaves free every fifty years, year of the Jubilee. In Rome, slave had the right to buy their freedom. Caste: A system of rigid social stratification characterized by hereditary status, endogamy (marriage within their own group), and social barriers sanctioned by custom, law, or religion (Marriam-Webster). In a caste system, your status would be de...