ABSTRACT
Anthropology was not directly related to this development in religious studies, and as the field began to develop on its own, the focus began to turn to the functions of ritual within society. Durkheim's social-function theory was expanded by Alfred Radcliffe-Brown, who argued similarly to the myth-ritualists that belief was the effect of the ritual, though he acknowledged a more complex, interactionist relationship between myth and ritual than a simple either/or cause effect. Biogenetic structuralism approach emphasizes the way in which ritual serves social and material goals, and biogenetic structuralists make arguments for their adaptability and hence selected-for status. Max Gluckman's analysis emphasized the way in which rituals express difficult social tensions through their enactments of social conflicts and "ritual rebellions". The more potential conflict exists in a particular society, whether due to lack of mechanical divisions of power hierarchy.
