Master Status and Role Sets

The master status is “…a status that has special importance for social identity, often shaping a person’s entire life” (Macionis, 2013, p. 97). The master status that I most identify with as having the biggest impact in my social identity is always being physically connected with my future wife Kaisha as allowed by society either by holding hands, or other innocent ways of physically being together, and the title of this particular description of a master status is, “one who is a part of that couple that never lets go” (as labeled by others). There are many role sets that are attached to my master status such as playing the loving partner role, future husband role, caring friend role, and protective partner role. Role sets are “...a number of roles that are attached to a single status” (Macionis, 2013, p. 98). I was not born into the decision of finding a partner who I would never let go of (to the best of my abilities) so this is an achieved status because Kaisha and I made a personal choice to do this because of the overwhelming feeling for us to be unified and to be as close as can be.

Kaisha and I wanted to express our unity in this sort of way because we felt inspired by God to because of how attached Christ was to the church and how marriage should be like Christ (the husband) is with the church (the wife). By no means do Kaisha and I take on the privileges of marriage early on, but we do see each other as married by faith (meaning in the future and something that we hope for, but we don’t have marriage over us in the present time). I wouldn’t ever dare say that to be married and have children involves never physically letting go or always at least being in the same vicinity as one’s partner, but it certain...

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...rest of our lives when possible (always being side by side and physically touching). Lastly, because of our master status people had thought that I had gotten sexual with Kaisha or that at least we had kissed a lot because of the way we were behaving, but this is far from the truth; in addition, Kaisha and I haven’t even kissed and want to save this for when we get legally married. I just feel at peace leaving the kissing and everything else for when we do marry, but because of my master status there was a lot of unbelief with this goal for marriage. I don’t care what the world thinks of me because of my master status and future goals because I’d rather be honest and be seen as fake to the world than be truly fake and seen as honest to the world.

Works Cited

• Macionis, J. J. (2013). Society: the basics (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall.