ABSTRACT
The individual is linked to society through two principal social bonds: to collectivities through membership and to other individuals through social relationships. Tie-signs can be found where neither end of the relationship is present, as in family photographs stored in the attic; or where only one end is present, as when a man carries pictures of the wife and kiddies in his wallet or a tattoo of their names on his arm. A tie-sign is in fact dependent on the context for its meaning, even though it is seen as intimately associated with the actions and bodies of the persons in the relationship. Acts and events that are tie-signs appear to have some general social functions, and indeed these functions provide us with one means of dividing tie-signs into classes for purposes of description. When tie-signs—and, by implication, relationships—are used as a cover, one end of the relationship may not know that covering information is being manufactured.
