Title: House Families
General Information about Item:
- Customary Folklore
- Informant: R.C. ’22
- Date Collected: 05/19/2020
- R.C. is a male student at Dartmouth College. He is affiliated.
- Cultural Context: Families are small units of close individuals. The adoption of this technique into fraternity culture serves a similar purpose.
- Social Context: House families are smaller groups in the house new members are sorted in to. These act as smaller and closer social groups for the new members in the house.
- This specific fraternity gives its new members “families” within its members. These families consist of one to two new members and a handful of older members to serve as a resource during and after the rush process.
- I found these families to be an interesting and useful way to help new members during the rush process. They stay families for life, long after active membership in the fraternity ends. In this specific example, the family the informant was in was easily dated back to Dartmouth alumni from 2014.
Collector’s Name: Charlie Wade
- Customary Lore