Endosocial

Endosocial is the adjective that marks which side of the boundary something is happening on, and it attaches to acts, interactions, words and emotions rather than only to groups. Three conditions satisfy it. Something is endosocial if it occurs inside an endogroup, inside an endoself or according to the laws of endoreality, and the third catches cases where no group is visibly involved. The distinction from exosocial is directional and does real analytic work throughout the framework. Charity is endosocial and altruism is exosocial. Honour is endosocial and dignity is exosocial. Trade occurs across endosocial boundaries and does not occur among people with the closest ties. In each pair the two acts can look identical from outside, and what separates them is whether a boundary is being crossed or reinforced. Marsh's most compressed statement of the difference is about membership. In an endogroup people are either in or out, while in exosocial relationships they are accepted or rejected through each interaction separately, which means an endosocial arrangement settles a person's standing once and an exosocial one leaves it open. The word carries no automatic condemnation of the people involved. It names where an interaction is taking place and therefore what it is doing to the membrane, which is a structural reading rather than a moral one.

The endogamy and exogamy distinction in anthropology concerns marriage inside or outside a group and is the nearest existing pair using the same prefixes. Sociology has bonding and bridging social capital, Robert Putnam's distinction between ties that reinforce a group and ties that connect across groups, which maps closely onto Marsh's pair and carries much the same evaluation. Parochial altruism in evolutionary research describes generosity restricted to a group. Marsh's version is more general than any of these, since it applies to any act rather than to marriage, networks or giving specifically, and it is grounded in a claim about energy flow rather than in observed patterns of association.