[Aliska]

No they are not rites but that was the only analogy I could think of. Rites are governed by rules made by churchmen. Orders are governed by rules made by churchmen. Rites are written by humans in an attempt to find words of communal worship pleasing to God. I shouldn't try to compare apples and oranges.

Maybe it isn't that way in the Eastern church, but rites in the Western church have undergone many changes.

[Spar]

not really. Here I will attempt to simplify it using secular examples.

Consider a rite to be the equivalent of the constitution of the USA in which rules on celibate priests, etc are ingrained.

Now consider orders to be the army or the FBI or the police dept of fire dept.

These organizations have diff ways of doing things but they all must follow the constitition same as orders in respect to the Latin rite.