Norms – having large families, son preference, discriminating attitude towards daughter
Critique
Relationships
-Marriage not only weakens her tie with natal kin group but also a man’s ties
to his
-Treatment of widow, child marriage, male heir
-Unmarried siblings become a financial burden
-interpersonal conflicts bet mum in law and daughter in law
- therefore man is not always able to harmonise the expected mode of behaviour of all roles
Other
- Dowry
- Inter caste marriage – burning of bride, sale of bridegroom in matrimonial market
Feminist view
Woman torn between economic necessity and the pressure to conform to patriarchal ideology
Literacy rate, wage rate low for women
Critique
Women in kerala had high literacy rate, more women enterent into workforce
Gandhi’s fight for independence of India and for women
Indira Gandhi the first female prime minister of India
Inner strength of women who agrees to kill their baby girl
Significant changes & Why?
Factors
- increase in urbanization & industrilisation
- socio economic political changes
- joint family and nuclear family has been subjected to strain and stress has shrunk in size to secure food, rear children & look after sick
- Great forces of fission, interpersonal relationships the family type became nuclear & joint/extended, nuclear stem, joint, joint-stem
- Gandhi’s fight for woman ----increase in socio economic development –increase status of woman – increase divorce and separation- --- supplemented nuclear families
- Feminist movement emergence emphasized equality of woman – blaming the paternal society.
- Lower caste ‘Devadasi’ (temple women & prostitute) – abolished on papers-credit goes to Gandhi & followers
- growth of modern industrial & administrative centres fed my migrant coming
from village
- urban population governed by western ideas
- Any problems resolved through caste , village or kin counsils but after British adminstration personal laws to Hindus were consulted with Brahmans Pandits. After independence, In hindu law ‘custom is not a part of the hindu law thus it must be visualised as its opponent not component’.- eg customary norms & problems of conduct “proper conduct’
- Frequent clashes arise from caste system
Every classical family moving towards the standard western type----emergence of small elementary families.
Disagreement over whether these changes are desirable or undesirable?
Desirable
1)Increasing specialisation & diversification of occupation of the household patterns of modern India
2) a lot migrated overseas – poverty forces people to migrate for livelihood , if they migrate as whole (family) – question of practising norms , roles and responsibilities?
3) relation between wealth residential unit eg wealth confers certain social status in traditional hindu society – high degree of sanskritization is dependant on emphasis on the norm of residential unit.
4) injunctions embedded into woman’s subconscious mind reminding us our inequlity
Undesirable
1)Joint household is found only among those who practise agricultural & allied occupations
2) Sole bread winner migrates and the female with children stays back in their village together in joint family – for security
3) relation between wealth and the residential unit – arise of interpersonal conflict with differing type of roles
4) woman’s assumed role – carer & nurturing, personal loyaly, fear, paralysing depression, economic dependency
conclusion
changes of family structure –
macro level – socio economic background of the head of the family’s impt role
micro level – attitude and behaviour of the family members
