Page 99 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Social Structure and Social Change

Notes (ii) A man, his wife, his parents, his unmarried children and his married sons without children.

Diagram 4 (ii)

Fa+Mo
Ego+Wi

So+Wi So Da

(iii) Two married brothers with their wives and children.

Diagram 4 (iii)

Ego+Wi Br+Wi

So Da So Da

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).

Diagram 5
Fa+Mo

Ego+Wi Br+Wi Br Si

So+Wi So

G.So G.Da

All these classifications show that there is no unanimity amongst the scholars in the concept of joint
family. Taking the concepts of all these scholars together, it may be said that “a joint family is a
multiplicity of geneologically related nuclear families, joint in residence and commensal relations
and functioning under one authority”. It has also been defined as “two or more co-resident and
commensal kinship units”. M.S. Gore, however, feels that a more correct approach to explaining joint
family should be to view it as a family of male co-parceners and their dependents, instead of viewing
it as a multiplicity of nuclear families, because in the latter approach, the emphasis is on conjugal
relationship whereas in joint family, the emphasis should be on filial and fraternal relationships, as
we find in the former approach.
According to Gore (Ibid: 4) as an ideal type, the joint family consists of a man and his wife, their adult
sons, their wives and children, and younger children of the parental couple. This type of family may
be described as fraternal and filial joint family. This family may have two variations: one, as filial joint
family only, and other as fraternal joint family only. These three types may be diagramatically shown
as follows:

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