When taken into serious consideration, and studied thoroughly, it is evident that society has not changed over time. It is also obvious that there have been changes, but we can hardly say that they have been cahnges to society. I believe, we should say these changes have been “changes in perspective,” or “changes in the people,” not society.
Taking a closer look, one can noticed that the major chagnes are simply shifts on the norm. For instance, in previous times, it was normal for an older man to marry a woman still in her teenage years. However, those vast age difference are not uncommon today either: men still marry younger women, and some marry much younger (ten or more years younger) women. The shift occurs here. In previous times, the inverse of the situation just presented (an older woman marrying a teenager boy) did not take place. However, we now see couples were the woman is older, and usually much older (ten or more years older). That is not really a change; it is a shift – for which we can certainly attribute causality to the Feminist Revolution and the Women’s Rights movement.
This shift is not the only one. There have also been shifts in the persception of marriage, abortion, homosexuality, labor, the environment, government, defense, justice, etc., etc., etc. Any given moment in time when compared to another, even if just 20 years earlier or later, will yield differences inpersception which do not represent a change in society.
I believe the only change in society that has taken place in the past 200 hundred years is the steady move from blue-collar to white-collar positions. However, this change can be attributed to industrialization and increase affluence — and therefore education, both a refelction of persception shifts.
Time moves and passes. Time changes our surroundings and our lives, but society remains steady. The defines society as the basic foundation of human interaction and community. The differences between societies in different parts of the world integrate to form a universal human society, whic faces the same problems and rewards of smaller societal grouping. Society does not change, people do.