Greek life gives students an opportunity to make a big school a smaller place through finding friends, making memories, or in my case, explaining to my pledge child that my pledge husband is also my pledge dad.

Sound incestuous? Apparently my family tree is a few branches short.

For some Greek family trees, this may only be the beginning. Family trees within the Greek system have hundreds of family additions, splits, and even discontinuances. For those trees, ‘crazy’ may be a relative term in the family.

The Greek system upholds this tradition of family trees, which are installed to help new members fit in. Pledge families are chosen through a process in which both the older and the newest generations have input.

Pledges often have a say in which family they end up in. This helps members feel a sense of family and closeness because the pledges typically choose which tree their apple has fallen from.

However, the basic connection of pledge mom or dad and baby may be the only legitimate part of a pledge family. These families have been known to develop husbands and wives, aunts and uncles, cousins, adoptions and may even grind to a halt completely.

There are many parts of Greek life which contribute positively to the University, like philanthropies, which donate time and money to charities and allow students to give back to the community.

Also, brotherhood and sisterhood events promote bonding within a fraternity or sorority. These elements of Greek life allow members to make connections among themselves and the campus, so are Greek family trees truly necessary?

Maybe not.

Family trees are a tradition that may not carry much meaning besides the one night dedicated to discovering who those pledge family members are. However, they provide a channel where members can develop closer friendships with their brothers and sisters. Family trees offer a sense of community and a chance for new members to bond with brothers and sisters during pledge family activities.

When a pledge mom or dad chooses a pledge husband or wife, in many situations they pick their boyfriend or girlfriend. Many of these relationships do not last long, though, leaving a pledge child with a mom or dad they do not talk to.

Another situation might involve a mom or dad choosing their long-distance boyfriend or girlfriend to be a pledge parent. In that case the pledge child might never meet their pledge mom or dad. These pledge children are in need of reconnecting with their roots; of course, this is not too far off from the real world with today’s divorce rate.

In each sorority and fraternity, all members are supposedly considered each other’s brothers or sisters.

So, technically, by creating different generations, these Greek institutions are forming some wacky family trees.

When a group that is supposed to provide a home away from home leaves a member orphaned because their pledge parent is studying abroad or disaffiliates with their chapter, family trees may become more trouble than they are worth.

Those members who may find it difficult to discover their roots because they have been abandoned by their pledge families can consider it a ‘bad heir’ day, even if not much serious damage has been done.

Pledge families are truly what their members make them. Whether you end up with a mismatched family like the Brady Bunch or an average one like the Huxtables, there is certainly a variety of family trees within the Greek world.

Betsy is a sophomore in Media.