DISINTEGRATION OF JOINT FAMILY IN INDIA
Joint Family:
Joint family is a group life in the sense that kins of several generations live together, eat together, work together and own common property. members are bound by their blood relations as well as mutual obligations. there is a rule of pater-families in a joint family system.
Definition of Joint family:
J. 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.”
Davis, “The joint family consists of males having a common male ancestor, female offspring not yet married, and women brought into the group by marriage. All of these persons might live in a common households or in several households near to one another. In any case, so long as the joint family holds together, its members are expected to contribute to the support of the whole and to receive from it a share of the total product.”
According to Jolly, joint family is not only parents, children, brothers and step-brothers live on the common property, but it may sometime include ascendents and collaterals up to many generations.
I. P. Desai, call that house a joint family which has greater generation depth, than under family and the members of which are selected to one another by property, income and the mental rights and obligations.
Henry Maine, defined, “The Hindu joint family is a group constituted of known ancestors and adopted sons and relatives to these sons through marriage.
Disintegration of Joint family system in India
The following factors are responsible for its disintegration:
Influence of education:
The modern education system changes people’s attitudes, beliefs, values, and ideologies and enables them to get into jobs. After getting jobs, they settled down in their place of work and made a procreation family there. As a result, their joint family in the village breaks down.
Impact of industrialization:
Setting up new industries has attracted many people to employment in the factories. Once employment is available, the person leaves the joint family and settles down in a nuclear family near the industrial town. As a result, most of the ties that bind all family members together in an industrial society began to loosen.
Influence of urbanization:
The urban centres provide people with various amenities of life concerning transport and communication, sanitation and health, education and employment, etc. migration of young adults from rural to urban areas, or from small town to metropolis and also often their choice of the spouse from the other community add the reasons for the disintegration of families. The conjugal family ties are becoming more intense than they were in the past, and yet at the same time, they have become more fragile, giving rise to a greater incidence of separation and divorce in urban areas.
Change in marriage system:
Change in the marriage system has an adverse impact on the continuance of the joint family system. Factors like the solemnization of marriage at a late age, the restricted role of the head of the family in mate selection, the freedom enjoyed by young men and women in matrimonial affairs, and the perception of marriage by most people as a social ceremony rather than a religious sacrament, etc., have weakened joint family ties.
Legislative reasons:
The joint family system has received a great setback from several legislations. These legislations are:
The Hindu law of Inheritance, 1929
Hindu Women’s Right to Property Act, 1937
Special Marriage Act, 1954
Hindu Marriage Act, 1955
The Hindu Succession Act, 1956
Dowry Restraint Act, 1961
These Acts have modified the inter-personal relations and the composition of a family and the stability of the joint family. This has affected the marriage system to a large extent.
Influence of western values:
Influenced by western values such as rationalism, equality, freedom, etc., they do not like to remain submissive under the tight grip of the joint family. The result is the disintegration of the joint family system.
Awareness among women:
Increasing female education and widened freedom and employment opportunities created awareness among women, particularly in the middle and upper classes. They also sought chances of becoming “free” from the authoritarian hold of the join family.
Extension of Communication and transport:
Difficulties of communication and travel in ancient times compelled all the family members to live together and jointly carry on the family occupation in agriculture and trade. Today when the means of communication and transportation have been extended, it is no longer necessary for men and women to stay with the family and carry on the family occupation. Now they go to the city and take up any other occupation or even living in the village and adopt some other trade and when they adopt a trade different from the family’s trade, they establish a new home.
Decline of agriculture and village trade:
The joint family system in India flourished when agriculture and trade in the villages were in a sound position. Today, with the establishment of factories, the commodities produced by the village craftsmen cannot compete in quality or price with those produced in factories. The village industries suffer a loss and, after some time, close down. With the closing down of the village industries, the workers in villages were also compelled to go to the city to find a job there.
It is, however, to be remembered that joint family system in India has not completely died out. The Indian people keep intact the family attachment and live their traditional morality. The thinkers who criticize the system have not been able to appreciate it properly. Compromise and mutual adjustment are the keynotes of the Indian joint family system. The joint family is not a place where individuality is crushed, but it is a cooperative institution where every member does his duty under the guidance of the eldest member. In it, we have a synthesis of individual and common interests; here are included social virtues which makes man a good citizen and teach him to live for all. What is needed today is to find out the ways by which the good points of the joint family can be retained. All this will require intelligent cooperation of rulers and social scientists aided by enlightened public opinion.
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