Two classical views of friendship

Aristotle provides us with one of the great discussions of friendship. He distinguishes

between what he believes to be genuine friendships and two other forms: one based on
mutual usefulness, the other on pleasure. These two forms only last for as long as there is
utility and pleasure involved, whereas genuine friendship does not dissolve. It takes place
between good men: 'each alike wish good for the other qua good, and they are good in
themselves'. Aristotle continues, 'And it is those who desire the good of their friends for
the friends’ sake that are most truly friends, because each loves the other for what he is,
and not for any incidental quality' (Aristotle 1976: 263). This also entails appropriate
self-concern.

Aristotle on friendship

Friendship... is a kind of virtue, or implies

virtue, and it is also most necessary for
living. Nobody would choose to live without
friends even if he had all the other good
things.... There are, however, not a few
divergent views about friendship. Some hold
that it is a matter of similarity: that our
friends are those who are like ourselves...
Others take the contrary view....

There are three kinds of friendship....

Friendship based on utility. Utility is an impermanent things: it

changes according to circumstances. So with the disappearance of the
ground for friendship, the friendship also breaks up, because that was
what kept it alive. Friendships of this kind seem to occur most
frequently between the elderly (because at their age what they want is
not pleasure but utility) and those in middle or early life who are
pursuing their own advantage. Such persons do not spend much time
together, because sometimes they do not even like one another, and
therefore feel no need of such an association unless they are mutually
useful. For they take pleasure in each other’s company only in so far
as they have hopes of advantage from it. Friendships with foreigners
are generally included in this class.

Friendship based on pleasure. Friendship between the young is thought to

be grounded on pleasure, because the lives of the young are regulated by
their feelings, and their chief interest is in their own pleasure and the
opportunity of the moment. With advancing years, however, their tastes
change too, so that they are quick to make and to break friendships; because
 their affection changes just as the things that please them do and this sort of
pleasure changes rapidly. Also the young are apt to fall in love, for erotic
friendship is for the most part swayed by the feelings and based on pleasure.
That is why they fall in and out of friendship quickly, changing their attitude
often within the same day. But the young do like to spend the day and live
together, because that is how they realize the object of their friendship.

Perfect friendship is based on goodness. Only the friendship of those who

are good, and similar in their goodness, is perfect. For these people each alike
wish good for the other qua good, and they are good in themselves. And it is
those who desire the good of their friends for the friends’ sake that are most
truly friends, because each loves the other for what he is, and not for any
incidental quality. Accordingly the friendship of such men lasts so long as
they remain good; and goodness is an enduring quality. Also each party is
good both absolutely and for his friend, since the good are both good
absolutely and useful to each other. Similarly they please one another too; for
the good are pleasing both absolutely and to each other; because everyone is
pleased with his own conduct and conduct that resembles it, and the conduct
of good men is the same or similar. Friendship of this kind is permanent,
reasonably enough; because in it are united all the attributes that friends
ought to possess. For all friendship has as its object something good or
pleasant — either absolutely or relatively to the person who feels the
affection — and is based on some similarity between the parties. But in this
friendship all the qualities that we have mentioned belong to the friends
themselves; because in it there is similarity, etc.; and what is absolutely good
is also absolutely pleasant; and these are the most lovable qualities. Therefore
it is between good men that both love and friendship are chiefly found and in
the highest form.

That such friendships are rare is natural, because men of this kind are few.
And in addition they need time and intimacy; for as the saying goes, you
cannot get to know each other until you have eaten the proverbial quantity of
salt together. Nor can one man accept another, or the two become friends,
until each has proved to the other that he is worthy of love, and so won his
trust. Those who are quick to make friendly advances to each other have the
desire to be friends, but they are not unless they are worthy of love and know
it. The wish for friendship develops rapidly, but friendship does not.

Aristotle The Nichomachean Ethics, 1155a3, 1156a16-1156b23

Suzanne Stern-Gillet suggests that friendships of utility and pleasure can be seen as
processes, whereas friendships of virtue are activities. Such activities are central to living
the good life. It is only friendship based on virtue that allows a relationship between
whole persons.
To perceive a friend , therefore, is necessarily in a manner to perceive oneself, and to
know a friend is in a manner to know oneself. The excellent person is related to his friend
in the same way as he is related to himself, since a friend is another himself.

As Ray Pahl (2000: 22) states in relation to Aristotle, virtuous friends 'enlarge and extend
each other's moral experience'. He continues, ' the friends are bound together, as they
recognize each other's moral excellence. Each can be said to provide a mirror in which
the other may see himself'. In this we love the other person for their own sake not just for
what they are or what they can offer, and we put the interests of the other before our own.
We can also see that we are separate and different from each other. We know ourselves
and the other. The moral excellence of friendship, thus, 'involves a high level of
development and expression of the altruistic emotions of sympathy, concern and care - a
deep caring for and identification with the good of another from whom one clearly knows
oneself to be clearly other' (Blum 1980: 71).

Friendship of this kind necessarily involves conversations about well-being and of what
might be involved in living the good life. Through networks of friends, Aristotle seems to
be arguing, we can begin to develop a shared idea of the good and to pursue it.
Friendship, in this sense, involves sharing in a common project: to create and sustain the
life of a community, 'a sharing incorporated in the immediacy of an individual's particular
friendships' (MacIntyre 1985: 156).

Arguably, the other major classical treatment of friendship was Cicero's Laelius de
Amicitia. Cicero (106-43 BC) was a Roman statesman and orator whose writings on
ethics, the philosophy of religion and natural law have been influential. His belief in the
notion of human rights and the brotherhood of man became important reference
points. As with Aristotle, Cicero believed that true friendship was only possible between
good men. This friendship, based on virtue, does offer material benefits, but it does not
seek them. All human beings, Cicero concluded, are bonded together, along with the
gods, in a community of shared reason. But in the real world, friendship is subject to all
sorts of pressures.

Cicero on friendship

Let this, then, be laid down as the first law of friendship,

that we should ask from friends, and do for friends', only
what is good. But do not let us wait to be asked either: let
there be ever an eager readiness, and an absence of
hesitation. Let us have the courage to give advice with
candour. In friendship, let the influence of friends who give good advice be
paramount; and let this influence be used to enforce advice not only in plain-
spoken terms, but sometimes, if the case demands it, with sharpness; and
when so used, let it be obeyed. (section 13)

[I]n friendship and relationship, just as those who possess any superiority
must put themselves on an equal footing with those who are less fortunate, so
these latter must not be annoyed at being surpassed in genius, fortune, or
rank. (section 20)

Now, by "worthy of friendship" I mean those who have in themselves the

qualities which attract affection. This sort of man is rare; and indeed all
excellent things are rare; and nothing in the world is so hard to find as a thing
entirely and completely perfect of its kind. But most people not only
recognize nothing as good in our life unless it is profitable, but look upon
friends as so much stock, caring most for those by whom they hope to make
most profit. Accordingly they never possess that most beautiful and most
spontaneous friendship which must be sought solely for itself without any
ulterior object. They fail also to learn from their own feelings the nature and
the strength of friendship. For every one loves himself, not for any reward
which such love may bring, but because he is dear to himself independently
of anything else. But unless this feeling is transferred to another, what a real
friend is will never be revealed; for he is, as it were, a second self. But if we
find these two instincts showing themselves in animals, - whether of the air
or the sea or the land, whether wild or tame, - first, a love of self, which in
fact is born in everything that lives alike; and, secondly, an eagerness to find
and attach themselves to other creatures of their own kind; and if this natural
action is accompanied by desire and by something resembling human love,
how much more must this be the case in man by the law of his nature? For
man not only loves himself, but seeks another whose spirit he may so blend
with his own as almost to make one being of two. (section 21)

It is virtue, virtue, which both creates and preserves friendship. On it

depends harmony of interest, permanence, fidelity. When Virtue has
reared her head and shewn the light of her countenance, and seen and
recognised the same light in another, she gravitates towards it, and in
her turn welcomes that which the other has to shew; and from it
springs up a flame which you may call love or friendship as you
please. Both words are from the same root in Latin; and love is just the
cleaving to him whom you love without the prompting of need or any
view to advantage-though this latter blossoms spontaneously on
friendship, little as you may have looked for it... And since the law of
our nature and of our life is that a new generation is for ever
springing up, the most desirable thing is that along with your
contemporaries, with whom you started in the race, you may also
teach what is to us the goal. But in view of the in-stability and
perishableness of mortal things, we should be continually on the look-
out for some to love and by whom to be loved; for if we lose affection
and kindliness from our life, we lose all that gives it charm... (section
 27)

This is all I had to say on friendship. One piece of advice on parting.

Make up your minds to this. Virtue (without which friendship is
impossible) is first; but next to it, and to it alone, the greatest of all
things is Friendship. (section 27)

Cicero, M. T. On Friendship
http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_cicero_deamic.htm

The ground covered by Cicero would be very familiar to Aristotle's original students. It
might be the case, as Anthony Gottlieb (2000: 409) has commented, that 'the fact that
Cicero had almost nothing original to say was of little significance given how beautifully
he said it'. Certainly his work was to influence generations of thinkers - and in particular
the intellectual elite that emerged with the growth of monastic and cathedral schools from
the end of the tenth century (Pahl 2000: 24-7). However, there was some tension in these
and other Christian settings, between this notion of friendship and the more universal idea
of Christian love (agape). One way of approaching this is to see friendship as being more
narrow in its focus. It is preferential and reciprocal. In contrast, Jesus' injunction to 'love
thy neighbour as thyself' can be understood as being applicable to friends, non-friends
and even enemies (Meilaender 1980). (Whether there is such a tension between what
might be termed 'Christian friendship' and agape is a matter of some debate - see
Hauerwas and Pinches 1997: 31-51).

Some 'modern' views of friendship

A good deal of sociological comment about friendship is based on the assumption that a
traditional society characterized by face-to-face and largely convivial relationships has
been replaced by a more competitive and individualistic one. In this respect the work of
Ferdinand Tönnies (1887) is often cited. He saw friendship (along with kinship and
place) as one of the three pillars of traditional community (gemeinschaft) that were
disrupted by the rise of the more impersonal forms of society associated with
industrialization, urbanization and capitalism (1955: 48-50, 233). Just whether traditional
communities were of this nature is, however, doubtful. There are significant indications
that friendships in the periods prior to large-scale industrialization in countries like
England were often instrumental. Relationships were frequently characterized by
considerable caution and suspicion. Ray Pahl (2000: 53-8) draws upon the innovative
analysis of the emerging commercial-industrial society by Allan Silver (1989, 1990) to
demonstrate that while there was a significant shift amongst many groups in society in
their experience and appreciation of friendship.

The replacement of much previous instrumental friendship by the rules of commercial

society allowed the free expression of a new morally superior friendship based on 'natural
sympathy' unconstrained by necessity. These new, freely chosen relationships reflected
the new universalism emerging in civil society. The well-regulated market frees the
classic Aristolelian friendship of virtue from friendship of utility. Commercial society
requires 'authentically indifferent co-citizens' rather than potential enemies or allies. (Pahl
2000: 57)

The new forms of market relationships and exchanges, it is argued, helped to create the
conditions for a move towards more benevolent forms of friendships among key
groupings in the eighteenth societies involved.

A new generation of thinkers began to chart these shifts. David Hume, Adam Smith and
Adam Ferguson each explored aspects of this (Hill and McCarthy 1999). They celebrated
the movement away from a narrow instrumental view of friendship. For example, Adam
Smith was acutely aware of the way in which market societies 'broke with the
dependencies of feudalism'.

Commercial society brought a degree of autonomy right down to the ordinary tradesman
and the street porter. Thus, where Rousseau in his Discourse on Inequality saw only
inequality and dependence, Smith saw the possibility of well-being, achieved through a
system of mutual co-operation, grounded on freedom, and a form of social organization
which accorded independence to ordinary people; independence of a sort that they had
never enjoyed before. (Sheamur and Klein 2000)

However, Adam Smith recognized that the emergence of commercial society was a
mixed blessing. On the one hand he claimed that commercial society promoted 'probity
and punctuality', at least in commercial relationships. On the other, he believed that it
also carried significant moral issues that required state intervention. In particular, he
argued that the focus on industry and commerce would lead to a neglect of education and
a 'degradation of morals'. In his famous analysis of the increasing division of labour
involved in manufacture he argued that the narrowing involved could have a detrimental
impact on personality and relationships. Similarly, the new urban conditions created the
possibility for neglect.

While a man [of low condition] remains in a country village his conduct may be attended
to, and he may be obliged to attend to it himself. In this situation, and in this situation
only, he may have what is called a character to lose. But as soon as he comes to a great
city, he is sunk in obscurity and darkness. His conduct is observed and attended to by
nobody, and he is therefore likely to neglect it himself, and to abandon himself to every
low profligacy and vice (Wealth of Nations, 747).

As a result Smith advocated people joining associations and groupings such as

churches in order that their 'conduct' may be 'attended to' by others. He also saw
a role for significant state intervention.

Adam Smith on friendship

 The man who, not from frivolous fancy, but from proper motives, has
performed a generous action, when he looks forward to those whom he has
served, feels himself to be the natural object of their love and gratitude, and,
by sympathy with them, of the esteem and approbation of all mankind. And
when he looks backward to the motive from which he acted, and surveys it in
the light in which the indifferent spectator will survey it, he still continues to
enter into it, and applauds himself by sympathy with the approbation of this
supposed impartial judge. In both these points of view his own conduct
appears to him every way agreeable. His mind, at the thought of it, is filled
with cheerfulness, serenity, and composure. He is in friendship and harmony
with all mankind, and looks upon his fellow-creatures with confidence and
benevolent satisfaction, secure that he has rendered himself worthy of their
most favourable regards. In the combination of all these sentiments consists
the consciousness of merit, or of deserved reward. (Smith 1759, Section II,
Chapter 3)

David Hume was more optimistic, 'welcoming a new sociability which he

identified with the pleasures of politeness' (Hill and McCarthy 1999). 'It is
remarkable', he wrote (1740), 'that nothing touches a man of humanity more than
any instance of extraordinary delicacy in love or friendship, where a person is
attentive to the smallest concerns of his friend, and is willing to sacrifice to them
the most considerable interest of his own'. Adam Ferguson was significantly less
optimistic. He argued that friendships could be difficult to sustain in the face of
competition and the demands of a market society governed by contract (Hill and
McCarthy 1999).

What we can see here is the emergence of some of the key tensions and themes that were
to become part of the 'modern' discourse on industrialization and urbanization. The
concern with the supposedly anomizing effect of urbanization; the new opportunities that
existed in what was seen as the more anonymous and impersonal world of the city; the
impact of changing economic and technological requirements on everyday relationships
and so on. New circumstances required the development of more abstract notions of trust
and, in some significant circles at least, allowed for the development of relationships on
the basis of choice. However, for many people living in the new urban areas there was
relatively little chance of benefiting from the 'new' forms of friendly relations. The long
hours they had to work, and the conditions they had to endure may not have left neither
the space nor the wherewithal to enjoy such relationships. This said, very large numbers
of working men and women were involved in mutual aid activities during, for example,
the nineteenth century (see Prochaska 1988). By the 1880s around 75 to 80 per cent of
working class men belonged to a friendly society and large numbers were involved in
mutual improvement activities (see Rose 2001) that were commonly described as 'friends
educating each other'. Out of companionship in study or common activity, according to
C. S. Lewis, direct friendship could grow.

C. S. Lewis on friendship

Companionship is, however, only the matrix of Friendship. It is often called

Friendship, and many people when they speak of their 'friends' mean only their
companions. But it is not Friendship in the sense I give to the word. By saying this I do
not at all intend to disparage the merely Clubabble relation. We do not disparage
silver by distinguishing it from gold.

Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions
discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the
others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique
treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be
something like, 'What? You too? I thought I was the only one'....

In our own time Friendship arises in the same way. For us of course the shared
activity and therefore the companionship on which Friendship supervenes will not
often be a bodily one like hunting or fighting. It may be a common religion, common
studies, a common profession, even a common recreation. All who share it will be our
companions, but one or two or three who share something more will be our Friends.
In this kind of love, as Emerson said, Do you love me? means Do you see the same truth? -
Or at least, 'Do you care about the same truth?' The man who agrees with us that some
question, little regarded by others, is of great importance, can be our Friend. he need
not agree with us about the answer.

C. S. Lewis (2002 - first published 1960) The Four Loves, London: HarperCollins, pp. 78-
9.

The scale of collaborative activity among working class and lower middle class people in
nineteenth century Britain was substantial. Organized around churches and chapels, trade
unions and associations, or political and cooperative groupings and the like, such activity
entailed utility and at least some pleasure and interest in the good. The extent to which it
grew into the sort of affection and commitment with which Lewis (and Aristotle) were
concerned is a fascinating, and peculiarly difficult, question to answer.

The experience of friendship today

It might be thought that with the vast numbers of community studies and ethnographies
that appeared in the twentieth century that we would have, by now, a rich appreciation of
the developing state of friendship within different societies. Unfortunately, with just a
few exceptions, much of the research undertaken has involved the use of fairly
rudimentary tools and models and the basis of our knowledge about the contemporary
situation is relatively slim (Allan 1996: 3). We can, however, make a number of fairly
obvious points. These tend to run from a central appreciation that friendship is wrapped
up with other aspects of people's social and economic lives. Friendship tends to be a
product of time and place (op. cit.). Here it is important to note three points.
There are significant differences in the ways that different social groups
organize their 'friendlike' ties. Research studies tend to highlight, for example,
contrasts in the way that those in the middle and working classes name and
develop their friendships.

The middle class pattern of friendship formation is quite clear and essentially the
dominant one in terms of what friendship is taken to mean. Essentially when people are
met who are liked, the common pattern is for the relationship to be developed by
extending its boundaries through involving the other person in other social contexts... The
use of the home for entertaining is particularly significant....

In contrast, working-class sociability has traditionally not been routinely organized in the
same way. From the various evidence available, and it must be recognized that much of it
is now quite dated, it appears that... the tendency has been for non-kin relationships to
remain bounded by the initial setting for interaction... Thus, by and large, workmates are
not seen elsewhere unless they also happen to share other activities in common: people
from a leisure or sporting club are routinely invited home; neighbours are only rarely
included in other sociable activities. (Allan 1996: 87)

There are also differences in the ways that similar relationships are named. For example,
the term 'mate' was found to be used by working class people for certain types of
relationships. 'Mate-like' relationships, are often linked to meeting people in particular
places like work, clubs and pubs, and tend to be more fluid. As Graham Allan (1996: 88)
has again commented, 'They arise through participation in the context rather than
deliberate arrangement'. People are seen routinely.

Whilst there is the possibility of over-emphasizing gender differences in

friendship patterns and content, there do, nevertheless, appear to be some
important differences. As Ray Pahl (2000: 112-122) has argued, sociologists have
been prepared to make some wide-ranging generalizations about men's and
women's friendship patterns.

Men were held to be emotional reticent - fearful perhaps of homoerotic overtones, while
women were held to be more articulate and emotionally accomplished.... In what is
perceived to be a more unstable and fluctuating world, men were less likely to expect to
find close friends at work: the occupational communities had gone and increasing
competition meant that colleagues at work became potential rivals... Survey evidence
demonstrated that [women's] regular contact with family and friends declined from the
mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. This was attributed partly to the pressures consequent upon
the successful juggling of family and work responsibilities. (ibid.: 116)

It might be that the role many women have had, and continue to have, in the management
of relationships within the home and family, for example, means that relationships
become an important focus for conversation. However, it is increasingly difficult to hold
onto the sorts of stereotypes around gender and the experience of friendship that were the
stock in trade of earlier generations of sociologists. Changing employment and education
patterns, shifts in the use of leisure time (in particular around the viewing of television
and other home-based forms of entertainment), the development of telephone and internet
use, the more general move to the 'suburbs' and the rise of nuclear family have had a
major impact on the extent to which people engage in face-to-face relationships and
belong to groups and associations (see, the discussion of declining 'social capital') have
all had an impact.

Our experience of friendship alters with age. There has been a substantial
amount of research and model-making around the development of children's
abilities to make friends. One way of presenting this is as a stage-based model
(which has its own problems - see life span development and lifelong learning).
One approach is to use a five stage model:

Aged 3/4 Children start to use the term 'friend' to describe

playmates

Aged 4/7 Children start to appreciate that own views and

identity is different from others

Aged 6/12 Children start to be able to 'put themselves in other

peoples' shoes'.

Aged 9/15 Children/young people are able to take on the

perspective of a 'third person'; to look at
interactions and, thus, to work on relationships.

Aged 12+ There is a recognition that individual friendship is

part of a larger network of relationships - and that
friends are linked with others in 'personal
communities'. (Pahl 2000: 99-101)

The final stage here, if achieved, is seen to continue into adulthood.

Dependence and independence are perceived as having a dialectical relationship with

each other. Friends rely on each other both for support and a sense of personal identity,
but also accept that each needs the space to develop relationships with others. There
follows a growth in maturity through such experiences. (Pahl 2000: 101)

Models such as this are notoriously slippery and subject to considerable debate and
disagreement - and can lead to rather wooden interventions to ensure that children have
reached the appropriate stage. This said, it does seem to be fairly reasonable to work on
the basis that the quality of the relationships one is able to form as a child and young
person will have a significant impact on the nature of the friendships we are able to make
in adult life. However, it is also important to recognize that the effect of these
experiences is not set in stone. Adults can transcend, for example, rejection by peers at
school.

As people enter the labour market, move in with partners, have children and so on, there
is an impact on the character of the friendships they are able to develop and sustain. From
the preceding discussion we can see that context and setting play a significant role.
Friendship needs time, space and material resources to develop and will be impacted
upon by the particular social environment and setting in which it arises. The nature of
friendship among older people has excited a significant amount of scholarly attention -
not surprisingly by gerontologists. Friendship is of great significance to older people - as
partners and relatives die, friends play an increasingly important role in people's lives.
This is especially the case where the person does not have children - or where they live at
a significant distance. Club-going and associational life emerges as a strong feature of
such friendship - and opens up wider networks into which pairs of friends can integrate
(Jerome quoted by Pahl 2000: 137).

Conclusion - changing friendship?

Commentators like Ray Pahl (2000: 5) have argued that friendship is becoming an
increasingly important 'social glue'. Today, many societies are held together by very
different social bonds than from three centuries before. Kinship obligations, civic
responsibilities and 'the mutual care of reciprocities engendered by being trapped in
communities of fate' (such as mining, farming and other single-industry communities)
have weakened.

Basically, it seems likely that two quite distinct processes are taking place at the same
time. On the one hand, friends may be taking over various social tasks, duties and
functions from family and kin, simply out of practical necessity.... The second process is
the changing meaning of friendship. Our ideas of what it means to be a good friend, a
close friend, a really close friend or a best friend are changing. Our expectations and
aspirations are growing and we are even prepared to judge the quality of our relationships
with kin on the basis of some higher ideal of whether we can be closer to them as friends.
(Pahl 2000: 8)

Others have questioned this deepening in friendship:

I contend that the friendships of today are simply thinner than before and increasingly
restricted. By "thin" I mean there is less to them. By "restricted" I mean that friendships
have been pushed out of key social institutions such as business and are increasingly seen
as belonging to recreation. (Anderson 2001: 30)

Both Anderson and Pahl agree on one thing though, there has been a remarkable lack of
scholarly attention to the phenomenon - and what has been written too often ignores
important questions - such as the different forms that friendship can take.
The relative lack of attention to differing experiences of friendship is of particular
significance if we are to address the arguments of Robert E. Lane (2000) and others with
regard to the loss of happiness in market democracies. Lane marshals the results of a
growing body of studies to demonstrate that income has relatively little to do with
happiness once people rise above the poverty level. He argues that companionship, by
which he means both family solidarity and friendship ('social support to social scientists'),
is the main contributing factor to subjective well-being (Lane 2000: 77).

If our experience of friendship is changing in many countries - and we are increasingly

likely to turn to friends rather than kin (and, indeed, to judge family by standards of
behaviour expected of friends), then this is something that we need to take careful note of
both in relation to education and to questions of welfare more broadly. We have a
substantial amount of evidence to suggest that social support in the form of social contact
and group membership has a very significant impact on our feelings of happiness, our
health and our ability to handle difficult episodes in our lives (see the discussion of social
capital). However, we do need to examine the quality and nature of the networks of
which we may be a part and the attitudes and behaviours of our friends, peers and kin. It
is an obvious, but sometimes overlooked, point in discussions of social capital, that if our
peers and friends are engaged in activities that are detrimental to their well-being and
health then it is makes it more difficult for us to break away from that behaviour. As Ray
Pahl (2000: 148) has again commented, 'It is not friendship per se that is important, but
rather the trust, security, feelings of self-esteem and feelings of being loved for one's own
sake that flow from it'. Knowing that 'significant others' like us, respect us and can
provide practical support is likely to make for a happier life.

It is also important to underline the extent to which economic, social and cultural context
impacts upon the experience of friendship (and the ways in which friendships sustain the
existing order).

[O]ur friends, in numerous ways, challenge our pretensions and evaluate our claims, all
the while confirming our personal and structural identity. Through such validation of the
self, the significance of friendship in binding the 'bricks of social structure' together can
be readily recognized. So just as friendships take on characteristics of the cultural,
economic and social settings in which they arise, equally those ties are consequential in
helping sustain the order there is within those settings (Allen and Adams quoted in Pahl
2000: 10)

Friendship can be viewed as personal and freely entered into - but it is formed in
particular social, economic and cultural circumstances and this has a very significant
impact upon the people we meet, and our ability to engage in different activities. It is of
profound social as well as individual significance. Through friendship we gain practical
and emotional support, and an important contribution to our personal identities.
Friendship also helps us to integrate us into the public realm and 'act as a resource for
managing some of the mundane and exceptional events' that confront us in our lives
(Allan 1996: 114).