ABSTRACT
This chapter tells something about the subject because it is an important subject or rather because friendships are an important part of social life. Theoretically interesting ideas are another matter, and the truth is that a discussion of friendship, at this point, wouldn't contribute any. A consideration of friendship is not likely to add anything of importance to those arguments, in the way, for example, that the arguments about families did with respect to the priority problem. And now that spousal relationships have been discussed in terms of their profundity, the connection between reciprocity and friendship can be extrapolated very easily. If the marriage or friendship is a profound one, then those problems ought to be resolved by bringing the structure of the relationship into conformity with the maxims of reciprocity. There is a presumption in favor of structural equality, a need for developmental forms, priorities that conform to social distance.
