Family
•Family forms the basic unit of social institution and the human society could not function without it
• Family refers to a group of people or persons who are linked with each other by kin or blood connections
• According to Burgess( Canadian American sociologist) and Locke(English philosopher and anthropologist), Family is a group of persons, united by ties of marriage, blood or adoption, constituting a single household, interacting and intercommunicating with each other and creating a common culture.
• Family is a natural phenomenon or social entity that is created naturally by marriage. It is universal in nature.
Types of family
1: on the basis of size
a) Nuclear family: nuclear family is a type of family in which husband and wife and their biological children live together
b) Joint family: joint family is a family which include many units of families living together that is people of many many generations like grandfather, grandmother, uncle, aunt, their children, etc.They share a common kitchen.
2: on the basis of residence
On the basis of residence,there are two types of family and they are as the following:
a) patrilocal : in these families, the bride resides with her husband’s family after marriage
b) Matrilocal: in these families, the bride groom reside with the family of his wife after marriage.
Change in family structure
• India has a rich family structure with a patrilineal background where there is a male dominance society. Earlier mostly joined families were found where family members live together.
• They used to live under one roof, work together,eat, and cooperate with each other and sustain a life.
• This also helps family to get stronger, mentally, physically and economically. The children also get to know about the values and traditions of the society from their grandparents and elders.
• Indian family system has undergone drastic change in response to development in terms of industrialisation, education, and urbanisation.
• Nowadays, nuclearisation of family is seen everywhere. Nuclear families has taken the place of joint families
• Following are the reason for the change in the family structure or nuclearisation of family:
1) industrialisation
• industrialisation has led to rapid increase in the industries and other infrastructure that attract people to come into the cities for better job prospects that divides the family into small small units.
2) urbanisation
Due to the industrialisation, people migrates to the cities that resulted in urbanisation. People migrates to cities due to better standards of living, job opportunities and better condition for life that results in breaking of families in various units.
3) Education
Education plays an important role that can help in giving a status in society. As a result, concerned family migrates to the areas,where there are better education facilities, leaving joint family behind.
4) marriage at late age
marriage at late age could be a reason for the small family.Increasing demand for getting married late has led to the problems in conceiving. It lead to only one or two child.
5) Growing individualism
Nowaday, people want privacy in their lives which does not allow others to interfere in their lives. As a result, people prefer to live alone rather than being in a joint family.
Impact of change in family structure
1) collective decision
Traditionally, in joint families, all the men decided every aspect of their and their entire family matters. But due to nuclearisation of families, it enables women to take collectively take part in every decision making that lead to the increase in self respect and role of women.
2) Difficulty for dependent members: with the breakdown of the joint family, the aged widow and other dependent members in the family face severe problem. The joint family provides security to these people. After the breakdown they are left to themselves. This is the adverse impact of the change in the structure of the family system.
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