Society: Family

Society: Indian Family

"Women are the largest untapped reservoir of talent in the world"

Hillary Clinton

★  Concept

★  Types of Family

★  Features of a typical Indian Joint Family

★  Functions and Dysfunction of a Family

★  Life cycle of a Joint Family

★  Emergence of a new form of Family

★  Impact of Globalisation on Family

Family - Family is a social group of people united by marriage, blood and adoption.

Types of Family

Joint Family - 

• Joint family is defined as a social group consisting of people united by the ties of marriage, blood and adoption.
• It extends for two or more generations.
• It is characterised by common residence, economic cooperation, sexual gratification and reproduction.

Nuclear Family - It has maximum of two generations. It includes Father, Mother and their children only.

Monogamous - It is characterised by having only one partner, i.e., one husband with one wife.

1. Straight Monogamous - Having one partner throughout the life, i.e., even after the death/separation/divorce, remarriage is not allowed in Straight Monogamous Marriage.
2. Serial Monogamous -It may include more than one partner but at any point of time have only one partner, i.e., after divorce/separation/death of the partner, remarriage is allowed.

One of the effect of Globalisation and Westerinsation - 

Globalisation → Inclusion of new ideas → Marriage is no longer considered scared → Divorce/Separation is no longer considered taboo → Remarriage

Polygamous - It is characterised by having more than one partner.

1. Polygamy - One husband with many wives.
2. Polyandry - One wife with many husbands.
• Polyandry is practiced by many tribes like Kotas, Todas, etc.
• Polyandry can be quoted as an implication of skewed sex ratio.

Patrilocal - After marriage wife went to husband's house.

Matrilocal - After marriage husband went to wife's house.

• Matrilocal is practiced by Khasis, Nayars, etc.

Neolocal - Neither husband nor wife went to each other's house rather after marriage they both went to different place to live.

It is also one of the effect of Globalisation.

Globalisation → Diverse job opportunities → Migration → Neo-local family

Patrilineal - Family whose lineage is traced from father side.

Matrilineal - Family whose lineage is traced from mother side.

Features of Typical Indian Joint Family 

1. Patrilineal
2. Patrilocal
3. Common sharing of property
4. Common residence
5. Commensality (inter-dining), i.e., having food together
6. Blood relations are more important than marital relations
7. Centralised authority (mostly patriarchal)
8. Age and sex are the main ordering principle of the family hierarchy

Functions and Dysfunctions of the Family (joint family) 

Functions of the Family 

1. Primary socialisation
2. Agency of social control
3. Agency of social insurance
4. Economic Cooperation
• Prevent fragmentation of assets
• Secures economy of expenditure
5. Emotional support which helps in stabilising personality
6. Provides social status and identity to an individual

Dysfunction of the Family 

1. Lack of privacy
2. High fertility rate
3. Low standard of living
4. Low status of women
• Legitimise unpaid labour
• Treated as the cushion to veny out frustration
5. Self-alienation
6. Reproduction of social labour
7. Us vs Them
8. Arena of conflicts and contradictions
9. Many a time children are treated as scapegoats → Child abuse

Function of a Joint Family

Primary Socialisation 

• It is also known as Early Socialisation.
• Socialisation is the induction of a child into society's culture.
• Early induction of a child into society's culture is referred as Primary Socialisation.
• Family is the agency of primary socialisation where we learn values and behaviours.

Agency of Social control 

• Joint family acts as a agency of social control.
• One of the reason of increasing incident of Juvenile crime (i.e., crimes performed by Juvenile/Children of less than 18 years old) is the disintegration of joint family.

Juvenile Delinquency - It means any deviant behaviour on the part of children which is not accepted by the society.

Agency of Social insurance 

• Joint family also act as an agency of social insurance.
• Joint family works on the principle of 'From each according to their ability to each according to their need', i.e, everybody in a joint family is taken care.

Globalisation → disintegration of joint family → role of family as a social insurance declined → aggravated the vulnerability of old population

Economic Cooperation 

• Joint family works on collective expenditure which resulted in the economies of expenditure.

Emotional Support 

• Joint family act as an agency of emotional support.

Globalisation → disintegration of joint family → Nuclear Family → lack of emotional support → growing incidences of suicide, depression, anxiety, mental disorders, etc.

Also globalisation results in growing insecurity and uncertainty of life and labour market which further aggravated the situation.

Dysfunction of a Joint Family

Dysfunction means Negative role performed by the family though not directly.

High Fertility Rate 

Joint family → everyone is taken care → high fertility rate

Nuclear family → burden of taking care of children falls on parents → prefer small family

Low Standard of Living 

High fertility rate & limited income → low standard of living

Low Status of Women 

Basis of hierarchy in a joint family → Patriarchy → low status of women

Self-Alienation - detached from your own self

• In a joint family collective interest is more valuable and is considered than individual interest.

Collective interest > Individual interest → Self-Alienation

Reproduction of Social Labour 

• Joint family tends to produce a class of labour which never questioned the authority and is perfectly fit for the society.
• It will have a far reaching negative consequenses -
• He/She will never question any one including government, employer, etc.
• He/She became just a mute spectator indifferent to everything happening around him/her.

Us vs Them 

Joint family → big (many family members) → less interaction with outside world

Arena of Conflict and Contradiction 

• Individualism vs Collectivism
• Competition vs Cooperation
• Immediate gratification vs Delayed gratification, etc

Life Cycle of a Joint Family 

Disintegration of Joint Family - (Joint Family → Nuclear Family)

1.   Migration from source region to destination area.

Push Factor 

1. Agrarian distress
2. Increasing population pressure
3. Declining per capita availability of land
4. Lack of alternative employment opportunity
5. Decline of village industry

Pull Factor 

1. Industrialisation
2. Urbanisation
3. Globalisation
4. Modern value system
5. Better infrastructure with respect to health, education, transport, etc.

2.   Legal Factors

• Labour laws, employment benefits, etc. → reduce the financial dependence on family

3.   Land reforms

• to evade the land ceiling restrictions, the land was theoretically divided → sowed the seeds for the breakdown of joint family

Re-integration of Joint Family 

1.   Chain Migration

• Cost of living is high → Cannot afford to live in separate houses → Re-integration

2.   Child rearing in 'Dual career family'.

3.   Ritual bonds (Celebration of rituals, ceremonies together)

4.   Functional jointness is still retained

• Example - Performing physical and economical obligations in time of needs
• Only the joint household is disintegrated not the family since the functional jointness and obligations are still retained.
• Household - It is a dimension of family which deals with residence and a common kitchen.

5.   Lack of opportunity in destination area

• Lack of opportunity in destination area → counter migration → re-integration

6.   Feeling of Nativism → Family Re-Unification

7.   Normal cycle of development of family through different phases.

8.   Industrialisation (in source area)

• Also a decent economic base is a prerequisite condition to have a joint family and industrialisation can provide opportunity to have a decent economic base. Thus, it will also lead to re-integration of Joint Family.

Common characteristics of the life cycle of a typical joint family 

When either the male patriarch died or the property division takes place, Joint Family transformed into a Nuclear Family.

Once again when children get married and they continue to live together with parents, the Nuclear Family transformed into a Joint Family.

Emergence of a New form of Family 

1. Nuclear families with extended ties
2. Single parent family
3. Female headed family
4. Cohabitation/Live-in
5. Dual career family
6. Conjugal-Symmetrical family - A family in which both husband and wife enjoy equal standing/status and have the same power of taking decision.
7. Homosexual family

Decriminalisation of homosexuality → emergence of Homosexual Family

Globalisation → prospects of women empowerment and better opportunity for women → women started to assert their rights → women getting autonomy in decision making → Female headed family

Globalisation → secularisation → social significance of religion has declined → religious rituals and aspects & notion of marriage declined → Marriage is considered as companionship rather than a sacred institution → divorce/separation → single parent family

Impact of Globalisation 

1.   On Structure 

• It has resulted into disintegration of joint family and emergence of new forms of family.

2.   On Function 

• Economic role of family has changed - Traditionally, family was both unit of production as well as unit of consumption. Industrialisation resulted in the emergence of factory system of production, thus family reduced to the unit of consumption only.
• Educative role of family has changed - Traditionally, family provided whatever skill and knowledge required to performed the task. But industrialisation resulted in the emergence specialised institution of knowledge to provide education.
• Function with respect to spouse selection has also changed. Traditionally, family used to select the spouse for their children, But now the emergence of new technology (Matrimonial websites) and the events of love marriage does not require family during spouse selection.
• Impact of technology - with penetration of social medial and other means of communication and fast transportation, the ties with the extended kin has increased.

There are still two functions which are still performed by family -

1. Primary socialisation
2. Social control

No single institution has taken up/replaced family to take up these functions. That's why we are facing so many social crises like Juvenile Crimes.

Inter-personal relationship - Under inter-personal relationship rights, the relationship among the members of the family becomes more democratic.

It resulted in the decline of patriarchal relationship with better status of women.

PYQs 

The life-cycle of a joint family depends on economic factor rather than social factor/values. Discuss.

Answer 

Introduction: 

• Definition of Joint family

Linking statement: 

• How no family remains joint for all the time. It underwent a cycle.

Body: 

• There are social factors responsible for life cycle (discuss briefly)
• However, it is the economic factors which majorly impact the life cycle
• Economic factors - Disintegration & Re-integration

Conclusion:

• Overall observation

Question for practice

"Institution of joint family is characterised by both continuity and change". Discuss the statement in context of impact of globalisation on Indian society.

Briefly discuss the implications of dis-integration of Joint Family.

Critically examine the factors which makes Joint Family and institution. (Institution are those organised entities which fulfills some need of the society)

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Note - This is my Vision IAS Notes (Vision IAS Class Notes) and Ashutosh Pandey Sir's Public Administration Class notes. I've also added some of the information on my own. 

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