Page 122 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Unit 4: Family

• Simple family consists of a man, his wife and unmarried children. Sometimes it happens that Notes
one partner dies after the birth of some children and the other remarries. In that case, the unit
consisting of two sets of children cannot any longer be termed ‘simple’.
• That equalitarian family where husband and wife make most of the decisions jointly is called
syncratic family and the one in which equal number of separate decisions are assigned to both
partners is called autonomic family. The conjugal families are transitory in character and
disintegrate with the death of the parents. The consanguine families, on the other hand, continue
for a very long time because the existence of the family does not depend upon any couple.
• The trustee family has the right and power to make the family members conform to its wishes as
this family has no concept of individual rights. The authority of the family head is not absolute
but it is delegated to him in his role as trustee for carrying out family responsibilities.
• Karve has given five characteristics of traditional (joint) family: common residence, common
kitchen, common property, common family worship, and some kinship relationship. The word
‘common’ or ‘joint property’ here, according to the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, means that all
the living male and female members upto three generations have a share in the paternal property
and without the co-parcener’s consent, the property cannot be sold or disposed off. The large
joint family, according to Ross, consists of a man, his wife, parents, unmarried children, married
children with or without their offsprings, and his brothers (married and unmarried).
• The normal custom in Indian society is that a young man and his wife begin their married life
not in an independent household but with the husband’s parents. The fissioned independent
family, consisting of husband, wife and their unmarried children, is one where the head of the
family (of procreation) is neither subject to the authority of any of his relatives nor economically
dependent upon them; and the fissioned dependent family is one where the members (husband,
wife and unmarried sons and daughters) live in a separate house but remain dependent on
their kin, either in terms of functioning or in terms of property.
• In a democratic family, the authority is vested in one or more individuals on the basis of
competence and ability, in an authoritarian family, the power is traditionally given only to the
eldest male of the family because of his age and seniority. The head allows little individual
freedom to other family members and may or may not consult them in decision-making. The
status of a man is higher than his wife; in two generations, the status of a person in the higher
generation is higher than the status of a person in the lower generation; in the same generation,
the status of a person of higher age is higher than the status of a person of lower age; and the
status of a woman is determined by the status of her husband in the family.
• In the rural community, firstly, the proportion of joint families (49.7%) is almost the same as
that of nuclear families (50.3%). Secondly, when the nature of the family pattern is viewed in
relation to castes, higher castes (e.g., Patidars, Brahmins, and Banias) have predominantly joint
family, its proportion to the nuclear family being nearly 5: 3.
• The parental family was defined as one consisting of a man, his wife and unmarried children.
• As urbanization and industrialization proceed, more and more young married couples and
their families find their residences being determined by the location of their jobs. Neo-local
residence is, therefore, becoming more common. Sometimes these neo-local families eventually
return to their stem (parental) families, but often they do not. The newly married wife who
moves in the family often is subordinated to members of the family until she has been so
socialized into the new family that opposition to its customs and practices has been reduced.
The family norms in the ‘transitional’ family have weakened to the extent that distribution of
opportunities and rewards is determined by individual’s qualities and not by his membership
in the family. Indian traditional family was structured according to highly particularistic criteria
• As India began to modernize, the particularistic requirements of the family system ran head on
into the increasingly universalistic requirements of the occupational system. The traditional
norms demanded that contacts with outsiders be minimized and specified that contractual
relations with outsiders were not specially binding. There are no social security schemes for the
70 per cent of our population dependent on agriculture. All this has forced people in our society
to depend on the only available institution of family for help in period of necessity. The change

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