Starting A Sorority

[tunatartare]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Only if it's circumcised.

I'm sorry, that one just popped out.

Hahahahaha.

I think that it might be. I'm not sure. I don't know what the rules of kashrut are for birds. I just don't know how many people would actually want to eat a crow. What kind of wine would you pair it with?

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by KLPDaisy

Hahahahaha.

I think that it might be. I'm not sure. I don't know what the rules of kashrut are for birds. I just don't know how many people would actually want to eat a crow. What kind of wine would you pair it with?

I would think because it's a scavenger it'd be a no-no. But this is coming from a Catholic so YMMV.

I want to say a red wine, but I have no logic for that

[aopirose]

Originally Posted by kddani

You'd think this would've been discussed before somewhere on greek chat. I've never heard of this until this thread.

I thought so too. The only current NPC group that comes to mind is Alpha Xi Delta with the Sigma Nu connection.

[tunatartare]

What's the AZD/SN connection?

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by aopirose

I thought so too. The only current NPC group that comes to mind is Alpha Xi Delta with the Sigma Nu connection.

Is there a link to a discussion of that, I hadn't caught that particular discussion.

ETA: Daisy beat me to it!

[aopirose]

Originally Posted by KLPDaisy

What's the AZD/SN connection?

OK. Now, I have to correct myself. A Xi D was founded as a Fraternity and is one today so there went that theory.

As for the Sigma Nu connection, "Several Sigma Nus assisted the fledgling group with organizational ideas." http://www.alphaxidelta.org/heritage_founders.asp

Drolefille - I don't know if there has ever been a discussion on GC about that particular statement of sororities being called such because of ties to a fraternity. However, that doesn't mean there wasn't one and I just missed it.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by aopirose

OK. Now, I have to correct myself. A Xi D was founded as a Fraternity and is one today so there went that theory.

As for the Sigma Nu connection, "Several Sigma Nus assisted the fledgling group with organizational ideas." http://www.alphaxidelta.org/heritage_founders.asp

Drolefille - I don't know if there has ever been a discussion on GC about that particular statement of sororities being called such because of ties to a fraternity. However, that doesn't mean there wasn't one and I just missed it.

That's fine I was just being nosy

[BaylorBean]

Originally Posted by KLPDaisy

Hahahahaha.

I think that it might be. I'm not sure. I don't know what the rules of kashrut are for birds. I just don't know how many people would actually want to eat a crow. What kind of wine would you pair it with?

I would think a wine that you would pair with a game bird. Like a good fresh young Beaujolais or a rich Zin.

[tunatartare]

Originally Posted by BaylorBean

I would think a wine that you would pair with a game bird. Like a good fresh young Beaujolais or a rich Zin.

Sounds good. I think maybe I'll do a nice Crow Roast this weekend. All members of Teh Cult are invited to come. Please RSVP.

[AlexMack]

It's my understanding that female GLOs were founded so that women would have a society, like fraternities but completely separate.
BA, do you know who was founded as a 'sister' group to a brother fraternity? Wouldn't AEPhi be one?

[SmartBlondeGPhB]

Originally Posted by 33girl

So you're saying Gamma Phi Beta, Sigma Kappa and the other groups called sororities were organized in connection with men's groups??? I'm sure that's news to their members.

Not to mention...ZTA was founded at an all female school.

Sorry, but I call bullshit on this one, unless a competent ZTA can explain it a little better.

I call bullshit as well and I find it quite offensive as well. Seeing how the word was coined for us.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by blueangel

"Zeta Tau Alpha is known as a fraternity, not as a sorority. The Founders intended Zeta Tau Alpha be designated a 'fraternity' to distinguish the organization from the sisterhoods organized in connection with men's fraternities, called 'sororities.'"

http://web.archive.org/web/200304210...a.org/trad.htm

Originally Posted by 33girl

And again, WHAT SORORITIES DOES IT REFER TO??? Do they still exist? Were they little sister groups? Are they sororities that died out? What?

Yes, the reference would appear to be to what would later be called little sister groups, not to what we would call sororities today, and certainly not to any current or former NPC members orgs.

I believe that I have seen references to little sister orgs being called "sororities" in the days before that term came to refer exclusively to women's "fraternities." While we all know that Gamma Phi Beta was the first org to use the term "sorority" rather than "fraternity" or "fraternity for women," it must be remembered that sororitas (sisterhood) is pure Latin that would have been known to almost any fraternity man in the mid-1880s, Latin and Greek being core elements of a classical education. (Some etymologies I have looked at show the earliest use in English of the word "sorority" to have been circa 1530. Wish I had an OED handy.)

In the mid- to late-1800s, some fraternities had fairly organized "sororities," if you will, "of little sisters." I know that fraternities at Hampden-Sydney, located in the same Virginia county as Farmville, did. (My great-grandmother and her sisters were part of that group -- she wore my great-grandfather's Pike badge, which I now have. I also have an old Pike history with pictures of that chapter from the 1880s -- those pictures show the "little sisters" together with the brothers, my great-grands included.)

I would not be surprised that the founders of ZTA were familiar with the practice and terminology at Hampden-Sydney and chose to distinguish themselves from it. At the same time, the founders of KD, Tri-Sigma and ASA may not have felt the same need.

Perhaps ZTA removed the quote above from its national website to avoid risk of the very confusion seen in this thread.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

Perhaps ZTA removed the quote above from its national website to avoid risk of the very confusion seen in this thread.

That was my thought too. But if KD was there first, why avoid the term?

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

But if KD was there first, why avoid the term?

You never know. Perhaps the founders of ZTA thought the founders of KD should have avoided the term.

Perhaps some of the founders of ZTA had a personal connection with little sister groups at Hampden-Sydney or elsewhere that the KD founders didn't have. (The Zeta website says that while the new group was considering what to adopt as a name, "the group received valuable assistance from two of the members’ brothers -- Maud’s brother, Plummer Jones, and Frances Yancey Smith’s brother Giles Mebane Smith. Both were students at the college of William and Mary, members of men’s Greek-letter organizations and knowledgeable of Greek lore." Perhaps they advised against using the term "sorority" because of how that term was used at W&M.)

I don't know the ages of the founders of KD at the time of founding, but the founders of ZTA of were 14-15. Perhaps they felt a stronger desire to avoid any suggestion of being "little sisters."

All of these perhapses are just my guesses. I found an old and very think history of ZTA in a used bookstore a year or two ago, which we gave to my sister-in-law. If I get a chance to check that source, I'll do so.

[PeppyGPhiB]

Blueangel, it is possible those chapters have "borrowed" from each other some incorrect information. Gamma Phi Beta has no "brother" fraternity, no affiliation with any men's organization whatsoever, and it never did. The term "sorority" was coined especially for Gamma Phi Beta because the term "fraternity" was not accurate. Since we are a sisterhood, not brotherhood, a professor came up with the term sorority to more accurately reflect our organization. Some women's organizations established before us chose to keep "fraternity" in their name, probably because of tradition (though I could be totally wrong about this as the reason), and some decided to call themselves fraternities even after our founding.

The term "sorority" has nothing to do with affiliation to a men's organization.