The Merriam-Webster dictionary give the definition of a society as:
- An enduring and cooperating social group whose members have developed organized patterns of relationships through interaction with one another.
- A community, nation, or broad grouping of people having common traditions, institutions, and collective activities and interests.
The general use of the term 'society', in common culture, tends towards the second definition above. Society is often differentiated along geographical/wordview, with terms such as Western society being popular.
The most irreducible, or bio-historically original, meaning of the term 'society' is to that unit of multiple-human relationship without which there could be no other kinds of multiple-human relationship: male and female, one man and one woman, compatible as mates and as companions. The civil institution of marriage is for the preservation of that unit, within a world in which there exists ontological disharmonies between individuals.