The benefits of friends : inside the complicated world of today's sororities and fraternities / Jana Mathews.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

More than friends -- Fraternity party population control --Group sex -- Hooking up hammered and high -- Going after girls -- The sorority superchapter and the end of the best friend -- Playing war and the case for fraternity hazing -- Friends who fit -- Friends in high places: the fraternity power pipeline and opportunity hoarding -- Preference.

"Combining firsthand observation with thoughtful analysis and research culled from sociology, cognitive psychology, biology, economics, and history, this thought-provoking book provides a clear-eyed look at contemporary Greek life on US college and university campuses. As higher education's most enduring and pervasive single-sex organizations, historically white fraternities and sororities emerge as powerful social influencers that privilege the same-sex platonic friend over other forms of relationship, at their best offering dynamic new relational possibilities along with social and economic security. At their worst, however, they exacerbate campus hookup culture, create fictive family bonds that hoard social and economic opportunity, and distort some of society's most foundational relationship categories, including friend, romantic partner, and family"-- Provided by publisher.