FAMILIAL DISORGANIZATION
The family has often been regarded as the cornerstone of society in pre-modern and modern societies alike; it has been seen as the most basic unit of social organization and one that carries out vital tasks, such as socializing children. According to Oxford Dictionary of Sociology, ‘the family is an intimate domestic group made up of people related to one another by bonds of blood, sexual mating, or legal ties. It has been a very resilient social unit that has survived and adapted through time.
From the above family is understood as units, which has been over a period of time, let us discuss the following why family being disorganized what has lamented the changes and worried about their effect on society.
MEANING OF FAMILY DISORGANIZATION
Family disorganization may be thought to include any sort of non-harmonious functioning within the family. Thus, it may include not only the tensions between the husband and wife but those arising between and among children and parents as well. Tensions between children and parents often present serious problems of adjustment. This result in friction and such disagreements may also result in tensions between husband and wife.
However, the children’s conflict with parents does not threaten the family organization as a degree of conflict between husband and wife over trivial matters as well as fundamental social issues, which makes the rifts more serious leading to family disruption. Disruptions of the marriage relationship are occasioned by tensions between husband and wife. Like marriage, it is governed by a variety of cultural and legal regulations that show how difficult it is to accomplish and the social and personal consequences it produces. This conjugal relationship is the central bond uniting the family in any society. When this bond is broken, it may take the form of desertion, separation, divorce, physical violence or use of abusive language. But these manifestations are only the superficial symptoms of a breakdown in the intimate relationships within the family.
Family disorganization in the external manifestation may take the form of desertion, separation, divorce, physical violence or use of abusive language. It is to be pointed out that tension in family life is growing in the modern age because of the rapid changes in the role and status of the partners. In which it takes the legal or social function of a normal family life to be maintained even when these personal relationships are at a minimum.
DEFINITION OF JOINT FAMILY
A joint family is a group of kins of several generations, ruled by ahead, in which there is joint residence, hearth and property and whose members are bound with each other by mutual obligations. The chief characteristics for a joint family are common residence, common kitchen, joint property, common worship, rule of the pater familia and consciousness of mutual obligation among family members. This will be clear from the following definitions of joint family:
I. Karve. “A joint family is a group of people who generally live under one roof, who eat food cooked at one hearth, who hold property in common and who participate in common worship and are related to each other as some particular type of kindred.”
Jolly. “Not only parents and children, brothers and step-brothers live on the common properly, but it may sometimes include ascendents, descendents and collaterals upto many generations.”
I. P. Desai. “We call that household a joint family which has greater generation depth (i.e. three or more) than the nuclear family and the members of which are related to one another by property, income and mutual rights and obligations.”
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JOINT FAMILY
The characteristic feature of the joint family is the combined living of several families. The features of a mixed family in India are depicted in Rajendra Kumar Sharma book “Social Disorganisation”. As is evident from its name, it is the combined form of family. Its other characteristics features are the following:
Join habitation: The most striking feature of the joint family is the living of several families in one house. In this, the father, son, son’s wife and children all live together. According to Sir, Henry Maine the Hindus joint family is a group constituted of a known ancestor and adopted sons and relatives related to these sons through marriage.
Joint kitchen: As long as the one kitchen does not serve the entire group, different families cannot be regarded as a joint family even if they live in one house. The food for all members of a joint family, consisting of a father, mother, their sons and their son’s children, is cooked in one kitchen. In this way, by having one kitchen in the joint family other activities are also performed by all members together. The moment the kitchen is separated, the joint family ceases to exist.
Joint property: In addition to joint habitation and a combined kitchen, another characteristic feature of the joint family is joint property. In a joint family, the ownership, production and consumption of wealth take place on a joint basis. The head of the joint family is like a trustee who manages the property of the family with a view to deriving material and spiritual benefits for the members of the family. The total earnings of all the family members are pooled. The head of the family makes proper use of it on behalf of everyone.
Authority of the head: According to Maine, the man has absolute authority. But in practice, he makes more use of persuasion and love than command. He keeps in mind the needs of all members and employs them according to their ability.
CAUSES OF FAMILY DISORGANIZATION
There have always been men and women who found their marriage ties bitter, their life together unhappy. A changed economic and social order has only facilitated release from such bonds. Marriage has now taken on a more personal aspect so far as wishes, desires and attitudes of the contracting parties are concerned. Family tension is any conflict situation that generates opposing attitudes between its members, particularly between husband and wife. In a sense tension grows out of an original disparity in attitudes and values and as the tension increases greater antagonism in attitudes develops.
On understanding the above, family disorganization leads to personal and impersonal factors which play a greater part in family breakdown, disparities in attitudes and values which make life together intolerable to one or both. Let us discuss the following –
Personal Factors:
Romantic Fallacy: Romantic fallacy brings many lovers together these days because of less parental control in the choice of mates and founded on freedom of choice owing to rising democracy and other social forces such as emancipation of women in religion, in economic affairs, in politics and above all in the power of marital choice. In fact, equality of sexes was an important factor in the romantic courtship, which gives the individuals more liberty.
The wives and husbands who are convinced that romantic happiness is the sole criterion of marriage are likely to think that something has happened when the edge has worn off the first careless rapture. They may believe that the only way that they can recapture this romantic infatuation is with another spouse. On the other hand, marriage is a practical and serious relationship, not a romantic interlude. The person, later on, concludes that he has made an unfortunate initial choice and the joy of true romance may be realized more completely with someone else. Thus, the romantic fallacy is the cause of many family tensions for newly-married young couples.
Clashing Temperament: In the initial acquaintanceship, when each is bent on making a good impression on the other, the real personality and temperament are not brought to light. Later, however, classes in temperament may take on a violent aspect. The overcritical, pessimistic, nagging wife may make life wretched for the happy, carefree youth who prefers a gay party to spend the evening at home. Or, again one person may be quick-tempered, choleric, and the other quiet, slow to anger. Highly individualized temperaments take on a characteristic pattern of behaviour, which the other resents and dislikes despite a certain bond of affection.
Philosophy of life: More important than temperament is the role of an individual’s philosophy of life in the marital relationship. If both husband and wife possess some identity of important values, as expressed in the social attitudes, their marriage problems will tend to be adjusted successfully. On the other hand, if they differ on fundamental values, the relations are likely to be strained easily.
For example, conflict will always be imminent if the woman’s highest aim is social ascendancy, the whirl of bridge parties, and the tea parties whereas her husband prefers intellectually stimulated contacts, the new books on art and philosophy, and friendships of a scholarly sort.
Personal-Behaviour Patterns: The personal-behaviour patterns may include both habits and the more generalized manner of conduct. Irritating petty habits, insignificant thought they may seem, may bring high marital friction. A woman may talk so loudly on the street that she embarrasses her husband. A husband may be accustomed to eating something in the street, whereas his wife was reared in a home where such conduct was an offence to “good manners”. Both of these divergences present serious implications because they present a disregard for values that the other has accepted as important.
Even in the most successful marriages, there are irritating little habits and mannerisms of which the other was not aware at the time of marriage. If these can be accepted without any serious adjustment of life values, in a spirit of tolerant give and take, they may cause no serious trouble. But if they are not able to develop the power of tolerance serious troubles may arise.
Psychopathic Personalities: Psychopathic personality of one partner or the other may affect marital relationships. Such persons have mental instability and are often charged with cruel and inhuman treatment, mental cruelty, or physical violence (and have the symptoms of psychosis and neurosis).
Impersonal Factors or Social and Cultural Factors:
Economic Tensions: The economic tensions cover a variety of sub-classification and may be due to –
Sheer Poverty: Despite romantic ideal of love, long-continued worry over financial matters is not conducive to healthy marital relations. Poverty is ‘of course’ a relative term. An income that a middle-class family defines as insufficient may be enough for a lower-class family. A person whose income is not enough to meet the necessities of life in a particular position may affect his temper. His wife may be sympathetic, but she is equally worried. Irritated and distressed because the children want shoes or there is nothing to eat she may lose her temper, or her husband may leave the house.
Business Reverses: Business reverses may sometimes bring troubles, particularly when the wife comes from an upper-class family and is of aristocrat nature and she is not able to readjust with the existing lower income.
Economic independence of wife: Where wife and husband are both in the same profession, but eh wife’s capacity is recognized as surpassing her husband, her spouse may resent playing the inferior role. Professional jealousy in such circumstances may affect marital relations. Similarly, the economic dependence of wife who has a professional career before marriage may become thorn in flesh. She may find it difficult to adjust her experience to fit the scale of her husband’s purse. It is often impossible for her to achieve standards of consumption that she enjoyed previous to marriage. As a result, she may be dissatisfied with the whole relationship.
Occupational Tensions: Occupational misfits may be another cause of marital discord. No amount of income in a business to a young man of literary and academic taste can bring contentment. Similarly, unstable occupation from store clerk to the insurance business or from salesman to window dresser, the continual readjustment and lean income period inevitably entail family hazards. Burgess and Cottrell found that frequent change of position is correlated with low scores in marriage adjustment. There arises a conflict between his ideals and practices which may easily be a source of friction in the family.
Differences in Cultural Background: When husband and wife come from different cultural backgrounds, there may be no grave difficulty, if both have approximately the same education and are somewhat cosmopolitan in their taste. But persons have a different cultural background in the absence of above similarities may find it difficult to adjust. Burgess and Cottrell found that the cultural background of both husband and wife to be one of the five groups of factors affecting family adjustment.
The disparity in Age: Any wide disparity in age is likely to mean divergences in attitudes and interests. Regarding age at the time of marriage though there can be no absolute rule as to the ideal age for marriage, yet those marriages appeared to be more successful when both parties were fairly mature or in any case the bride was over twenty-one. Because she then had insight and emotional maturity for marital problems. Age is, however, only one element in this complex relationship.
Ill-Health: At the first instance, a sick wife or husband may conjure up a real emotion of sympathy. But long continued ill health, with its drain on the family budget, the irritability because of nervous tension may, however, become a source of many family difficulties. Lack of stimulating contact, monotonous aspects of housework coupled with the husband’s indifferent expression of affection may lead to her nervous breakdown. Good health must be an accepted premise of satisfactory marriage.
Parent-child Relationships: Although childless marriages, on the whole, are admittedly less successful than those with children, the children themselves may be the centre of family tension and family conflict. There may be disagreement as to the policy of discipline, the type of training, the nature of the child’s education, social activities and so on. The father may become jealous of the attention which the wife gives to her children, especially in case of a son, and feel that he is largely shut out from his wife’s affections. Similarly, the mother may resent the favouritism which the father displays for his daughter.
Interference of In-Laws: Parents are often imbued with ambitions and the desire for their children’s happiness, and consequently they often insist upon imposing their decisions upon the reluctant children. They may insist that the daughter-in-law is too extravagant, or she is uncooperative, or she is unsuited to her task as a mother. In countless ways, their undue criticism may play havoc with youthful marriage.
The instability of the modern family, as measured by divorce and separation and domestic discord, will continue to increase for some time. The function, tasks, and interests of the modern family have become more delimited. And many new problems of intra-family relationships, as between husband and wife and between parents and children, have arisen or at least have come to light.
Social Disorganisation By Rajendra Kumar Sharma (pp. 54-59)
Indian Social Problems By C.N. Shankar Rao (pp. 248-274)
Indian Social Problems, Social Disorganization and Reconstruction By Gurmukh Ram Madan (pp. 356-390)
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