She wants to know if you are in or plan to enter a fraternity or sorority.
For the record, for those who don't know what they are:
A
fraternity (
Latin frater : "brother") is a
brotherhood, though the term usually connotes a distinct or formal organization. The only true distinction between a fraternity and any other form of social organization is the implication that the members freely associate as equals for a mutually beneficial purpose, rather than because of a religious, governmental, commercial, or familial bond, although there are fraternities dedicated to each of these topics.
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In many instances they are limited to male membership but that is not always the case, and there are mixed male and female, and even wholly female, fraternities. For example, for general fraternities; Grande Loge Mixte de France, Honorable Fraternity of Ancient Freemasons, Grande Loge Feminine de France,
Order of the Eastern Star; for college and university fraternities,
Sigma Phi Epsilon,
Kappa Alpha Theta,
Alpha Phi International,
Pi Kappa Phi,
Delta Delta Delta.
Fraternities can be organized for many purposes, including university education, work skills, ethics, ethnicity, religion, politics, charity, chivalry, other standards of personal conduct, asceticism, service, performing arts, family command of territory, and even crime. There is almost always an explicit goal of mutual support, and while there have been fraternal orders for the well-off there have also been many fraternities for those in the lower ranks of society, especially for national or religious minorities. Trade unions also grew out of fraternities such as the
Knights of Labor.
The ability to organize freely, apart from the institutions of government and religion, was a fundamental part of the establishment of the modern world. In
Living the Enlightenment, Margaret C. Jacobs showed the development of Jurgen Habermas' 'public space' in 17th century Netherlands was closely related to the establishment of lodges of Freemasons
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