Making a submission to a higher authority (7)
I believe the answer is:
obeying
'making' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with social activities as well as being present participle verbs.
Perhaps they are linked in a way I don't understand?
'a submission to a higher authority' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'authority' could be 'bey' (bey is a kind of authority) and 'bey' is found in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for obeying that I've seen before include "Carrying out orders" , "Following orders" .)