Editing Society (section)

==== Agrarian ====
{{Main|Agrarian society}}
[[File:Detail of Les tres riches heures - March.jpg|thumb|alt=Painting of farmers, with one plouging with two oxen |Ploughing with oxen in the 15th century]]
Agrarian societies use agricultural [[technological]] advances to cultivate crops over a large area. Lenski differentiates between horticultural and agrarian societies by the use of the [[Plough|plow]].{{sfn|Lenski|Lenski|1987|pp=164-166}} Larger food supplies due to improved technology mean agrarian communities are larger than horticultural communities. A greater food surplus results in towns that become centers of trade. Economic trade in turn leads to increased specialization, including a ruling class, as well as educators, craftspeople, merchants, and religious figures, who do not directly participate in the production of food.{{sfn|Lenski|Lenski|1987|pp=166-172}}

Agrarian societies are especially noted for their extremes of social classes and rigid social mobility.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Langlois |first=Simon |editor-last1=Smelser |editor-first1=Neil J. |editor1-link=Neil Smelser |editor-last2=Baltes |editor-first2=Paul B. |editor2-link=Paul Baltes |year=2001 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292447431 |title=Traditions: Social |encyclopedia=[[International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences]] |edition=1st |volume=23 |publisher=[[Elsevier|Elsevier Science]] |page=15830 |doi=10.1016/B0-08-043076-7/02028-3 |isbn=0-08-043076-7 |lccn=2001044791 |oclc=47869490 |access-date=7 January 2024 |archive-date=29 April 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240429035948/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292447431_Traditions_Social |url-status=live }}</ref> As land is the major source of wealth, social hierarchy develops based on [[landownership]] and not labor. The system of [[Social stratification|stratification]] is characterized by three coinciding contrasts: governing class versus the [[Commoner|masses]], urban minority versus peasant majority, and literate minority versus illiterate majority. This results in two distinct subcultures; the urban elite versus the peasant masses. Moreover, this means cultural differences within agrarian societies are greater than differences between them.{{Sfn|Brown|1988|pages=78-82}}

The landowning strata typically combine government, religious, and military institutions to justify and enforce their ownership, and support elaborate patterns of consumption, [[slavery]], [[serfdom]], or [[peonage]] is commonly the lot of the primary producer. Rulers of agrarian societies often do not manage their empire for the [[common good]] or in the name of the [[public interest]], but as property they own.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenski |first1=Gerhard |author1-link=Gerhard Lenski |last2=Nolan |first2=Patrick |year=2010 |chapter=The Agricultural Economy |title=Human Societies: An Introduction to Macrosociology |edition=11th |pages=35–37 |publisher=Oxford University Press, Incorporated |isbn=978-0-19-994602-0}}</ref> [[Caste system in India|Caste systems]], as historically found in South Asia, are associated with agrarian societies, where lifelong agricultural routines depend upon a rigid sense of duty and discipline. The scholar Donald Brown suggests that an emphasis in the modern West on personal liberties and freedoms was in large part a reaction to the steep and rigid stratification of agrarian societies.{{Sfn|Brown|1988|page=112}}