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2 Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Q. 2 (1973)

handle is hein.journals/npvolsq2 and id is 1 raw text is: VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS IN ANCIENT GREECE Sophia Peterson & Virgil A. Peterson West Virginia University This paper surveys voluntary associations in ancient Greece beginning with their known origins (the tribal hetaery of warriors) and concluding with the great profusion of associations in the Hellenistic period. In the course of this survey, we describe the purposes and operation of these associations and their social settings. We conclude that voluntary associations, in many ways similar to contemporary ones, enjoyed a lively existence in ancient Greece. DEFINITION To seek a precise definition of voluntary associations is to enter a labyrinth as bewildering as the one devised by Daedalus to confuse the Minotaur. No current definition is entirely satisfactory, and recent discussions of the definitional problem have dropped back to pre-definitional postures. As Bode remarks, a completely satisfactory definition of voluntary associa- tions seems less possible than a set of considerations for developing a definition or several definitions (Smith, et al, 1972, p. 63). Warner's essay in the same volume (pp. 71-80) approaches definition by listing ten of the characteristics attributed to voluntary associations in many past studies. From his list the following are most perti- nent to this study: 1.) voluntary involvement (i.e., the degree to which the acts within an organization are acts of free will exercised without legal coercion, monetary reward, or other sources of outer direction); 2.) secondary importance (i.e., family and/or occupation normally precede the voluntary association in importance to the participant); 3.) normative inducement (i.e., the values and ideals which bind and guide the group, not salary, legal coercion, or advancement in the society); 4.) specialization of interests (i.e., voluntary associations tend not to engage a wide spectrum of interests but rather to be relatively narrow as measured against the range of an individual's potential interests---a club is more likely to be focused on chess, say, than on recreation or leisure in general); 5.) low degree of organization (i.e., as compared with other organizations, voluntary associations have a relatively low degree of formal organization in their practice, though their written rhetoric may imply formality); 6.) private organization (i.e., not govern- mental, nor formally accountable to the public or other external structures for their behavior). (Cf. Babchuk and Edwards, 1965, pp. 149-162; Brinton, in Seligman, 1937, p. 574; and Lowie, 1960, pp. 3, 14, 295-307, and 316).

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