Good Company: The Sociological Implications of Friendship

Sociologists have paid relatively little attention to friendship, for a variety of reasons. This paper, based on an intensive study of a small group of middle-class, middle-aged English women, describes the basis of their attraction for each other, the activities they pursue together and the norms governing their interaction. Friendship emerges as a source of social integration. Friends are seen to play an important part in the creation and maintenance of social reality. Friendship offers relief from the strains of other role performance and provides a vehicle for the expression of feminine and status attributes. In this connection, attention is drawn to the role of women in the maintenance of the family's social position.