Household dimensions of the family

 

The concept, family, broadly refers to the primary group comprising husband- wife unit (parents) and their children. This definition keeps three types of ties in mind. The ties are: of marriage between the spouses, (i.e. the parents) and of siblingship between children. The two ties are connected through the genealogical one between parents and their children.

For example a couple, their married sons and latter’s’ wives and children make the primary group, stated at the outset of this section as a family, a somewhat larger one. Thus a family may be large or small depending on the prevailing principles of organisation of descent relations between the dependents of married persons. Thus, the family is based on the principles of kinship whose members usually share a common residence. They reside in a house/homestead.

This residential unit is called the household. The members of a household have a set of relational ties amongst them. These ties are linked with the statuses held and the corroborating role complexes members of the family are expected to constitute.

The household (ghar) is a residential and domestic unit composed of one or more persons living under the same roof and eating food cooked in the same kitchen (hearth/chulah). It may so happen that not all the members of a family live in the same household all the time. Geographically distanced homes may be occupied by a few of the members of a given family.

These members then reside in two or more households but they consider themselves as belonging to the same family. The household is a commensal and coresident group/ unit (with provision for the phenomenon of single person households).

Thus kin and residence rules distinguish between family and household. Kolenda is another sociologist who has consistently worked towards clarifying the conceptual issues about family and household. She has proposed the 12 type classificatory scheme in her comparative study of the Indian joint family based on  post-1949 ethnographic studies and household census.

 

The 12 type classes are as follows: 

 

1) Nuclear Family, a couple with or without unmarried children;

 

 2) Supplemented nuclear family; 

 

3) Sub nuclear family;

 

 4) Single person household; 

 

5) Supplemented sub nuclear family; 

 

6) Collateral joint family; 

 

7) Supplemented collateral joint family; 

 

8) Lineal joint family; 

 

9) Supplemented lineal joint family; 

 

10) Lineal collateral joint family; 

 

11) Supplemented lineal collateral joint family; and 

 

12) other, a residual class

 

The family is not a static institution. It goes through a developmental cycle. This cycle interrelates the nuclear and the joint families with each other. The structure of a family changes over time with changes in its size, composition and the status and roles of its members. Thus a family is not likely to always remain nuclear, nor does a family always remain joint. Similarly, not all nuclear families are identical nor are all joint families so. At any given point in time, a nuclear family may have one or more persons.

A household in itself is neither joint nor nuclear, but becomes either of these by virtue of its being under progression and regression in the process of its developmental phases. For example, a married son’s moving out of his father’s house in a patrilineal society makes the son’s house a nuclear one, or rather a separate one. This act may or may not simultaneously make his father’s household a nuclear one. Thus at any given time the family forms in a society are likely to vary from a single member to a large group residing together. Thus the term household is used for the residential grouping and family for the group related through kinship, emotional, ritual and legal dimensions.

Thus A.M. Shah uses the terms simple and complex for the household rather than joint or nuclear. Each person in a household is involved in a complex pattern of behaviour with every other member. Life in a household is marked by proper code of conduct for each member. To analyse a household in its entirety, all the relatives in a household need to be taken into account. ‘The compositional types are not discrete and haphazard but are interrelated in a developmental process. The pattern of the developmental process in each society is affected by three major factors.

The first is the demographic factor, which not only includes the phenomena of birth, adulthood and death but also the sex and number of members. While these phenomena are demographic in origin, they are social in operation.

The second factor is the series of explicitly stated norms regarding the residence of various relatives in a household.

The third is the pattern of interpersonal relations in a household, largely dependent on the norms or codes of proper conduct attached to kinship relationships in the household’ (Shah).

When a simple household becomes a complex one through addition of other family members (by birth or marriage) the process is called fusion. Contrariwise, when members are lost (by birth, out-marriage, migration) the household is said to undergo fission. A household goes through the process of fusion and fission and accretion and attrition and in its wake turning itself into simple and complex one. Each attrition may or may not change the household and the family into a nuclear or a joint one.

 

The systematically inferior position of women inside and outside the household in many societies points to the necessity of treating gender as a force of its own in development analysis. The economic hardship of woman-headed households is a problem both of female deprivation and of family poverty. Furthermore, females and males in the same family may well have quite divergent predicaments, and this can make the position of women in the poorer families particularly precarious. To concentrate on family poverty irrespective of gender can be misleading in terms of both causation and consequences.

 

 

Family has more specialised and its role is still vital. By structuring the personalities of the young and stabilising the personalities of adults, the family provides its members with the psychological training and support necessary to meet the requirements of the social system. In fact, the loss of certain functions of the family has made its remaining functions more important.

The family's responsibility for socialising the young remains important as ever. Even though the family has largely lost its functions as a unit of production, it still maintains a vital economic function as a unit of consumption. Parents of today are expected to do their best to guide, encourage, and support their children in their educational and occupational choices and careers. Compared to the past, parents are more preoccupied with their children's health and emotional well-being.

State health and welfare provisions have provided additional support for the family and made its members more aware of the importance of health and hygiene in the home. In a nutshell, the family has adapted and is adapting to a developing industrial society. It remains as a vital and basic institution in society.