Legitimation

Social order is largely reproduced over time through the cycle of socialization. As noted above, presumably the first person who wore pants did so just because he or she individually liked pants. However, wearing pants has become a fictitious necessity: my parents were taught that they had to wear pants, they taught me to wear pants too, and I'll teach my children that they have to wear pants. Through the process of socialization, social practices reproduce themselves over time.

Socialization doesn't always “take,” however, and often people begin to ask “why?” Every once in a while a child asks her parents, “Why do I have to wear pants?” The first answer to the “why” question is usually “just because that's the way things are” This usually works, because people conveniently ignore that when it comes to social constructions, this is completely false: things are not just the way they are; things are how we have made them. But most practices have become mystified or naturalized. Wearing pants has become natural to me; I couldn't imagine going to work without pants. Again, there is nothing at all natural about this—many societies throughout time haven't required individuals to wear pants. But the practice has become naturalized here, so that it has become a fictitious necessity.