ABSTRACT
The concluding chapter summarizes the specific characteristics of cenobite, cloistered monasteries as voluntary total institutions. Based on the preceding chapters, the chapter provides an outline of how to conceptualize fraternal relations as relationships based on mutual membership, characterized by collective solidarity, equality and fraternal love among all brothers and/or sisters. The chapter discusses how social relations among monks and those among nuns differ and how the monastic context can be understood as intimate. Finally, other settings in which the concept of fraternal relations is likely to apply and how it is likely to differ from those found in monasteries are discussed.
