--- title: Why Fraternities and Sororities Have Houses description: In recent years, fraternities and sororities have become synonymous with partying, often to extremes: reports of binge drinking and sexual assault have led some schools,... canonical: https://time.com/4931047/why-fraternities-and-sororities-have-houses/ author: Olivia B. Waxman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-09-07T10:04:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T17:19:09.221Z article:section: History og:title: Why Fraternities and Sororities Have Houses og:description: In recent years, fraternities and sororities have become synonymous with partying, often to extremes: reports of binge drinking and sexual assault have led some schools,... og:url: https://time.com/4931047/why-fraternities-and-sororities-have-houses/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt220dc9822d3a7f07/6988dcc30b72e337a76ef54b/why-fraternities-sororities-houses.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: why-fraternities-sororities-houses og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why Fraternities and Sororities Have Houses twitter:description: In recent years, fraternities and sororities have become synonymous with partying, often to extremes: reports of binge drinking and sexual assault have led some schools,... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt220dc9822d3a7f07/6988dcc30b72e337a76ef54b/why-fraternities-sororities-houses.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why Fraternities and Sororities Have Houses  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Sep 7, 2017 10:04 AM UTC  Students play rugby on the Madison Bowl field of the University of Virginia (UVA) campus next to fraternity houses on Madison Lane in Charlottesville, Virginia, Jan. 16, 2015. Students play rugby on the Madison Bowl field of the University of Virginia (UVA) campus next to fraternity houses on Madison Lane in Charlottesville, Virginia, Jan. 16, 2015.Andrew Harrer—Bloomberg/Getty Images  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Sep 7, 2017 10:04 AM UTC In recent years, fraternities and sororities have become synonymous with partying, often to extremes: reports of binge drinking and sexual assault have led some schools, including Harvard and Penn State, to discuss banning Greek life altogether. Yet in their early days, fraternities and sororities served a more practical purpose. At issue was a housing crunch. In the 19th century, as universities expanded their offerings, there wasn’t enough living space for the influx of new students, says Nicholas L. Syrett, author of _The Company He Keeps: A History of White College Fraternities_. The first frat houses, like the one built in 1876 at the University of California, Berkeley, offered a fix. By allowing students to live in those spaces, colleges could enroll more students without investing in housing. Syrett found that 774 such houses existed by 1920. The houses kept students sheltered figuratively too. When women arrived in larger numbers on campuses in the late 1800s, the earliest sororities–like Kappa Alpha Theta, founded at what’s now DePauw University in 1870–allowed them to follow Victorian social mores by living apart from men. Over time, various issues became apparent: the houses were a way for students to separate themselves, and in practice that often meant that wealthy white Protestant students got exclusive accommodations. In some cases, students excluded from these societies formed groups of their own. These days students are drawn to Greek life for a variety of reasons. But the houses themselves aren’t exactly the problem solvers they promised to be. _For more on these stories, visit_ [_time.com/history_](http://time.com/history) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4931047/why-fraternities-and-sororities-have-houses/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4931047/why-fraternities-and-sororities-have-houses/"},"headline":"Why Fraternities and Sororities Have Houses","datePublished":"2017-09-07T10:04:38.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T17:19:09.221Z","description":"In recent years, fraternities and sororities have become synonymous with partying, often to extremes: reports of binge drinking and sexual assault have led some schools,...","url":"https://time.com/4931047/why-fraternities-and-sororities-have-houses/","keywords":["College","fraternities"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt220dc9822d3a7f07/6988dcc30b72e337a76ef54b/why-fraternities-sororities-houses.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Olivia B. 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