Joint family concept .....where is it now ??

**S.Balaji** · 26th April 2006, 10:28 PM

After a careful consideration, I decided to put this thread under Indian History and Culture because it was one of those respected , time tested and wonderful concept given to our previous generation by our forefathers……

30 years before ( may be 40 or even 50 ) , we had a concept of joint family system…..wherein one could see the leader of the family, Father and mother with atleast 5 children …..getting brought up and groomed …make them married ….seeing the next generation….grand children ….and the family went on further…..

despite the financial pressures and the space constraints, middle class families and lower middle class families followed this path …

One always had his / her Grandmother or grandfather or uncle or aunt to support you back home .......

this concept had lots of positives and few shortcomings ……

The positives :

1.any good or bad event….you have someone to share with
2.having a seasoned senior member comes handy during crisis
3.the junior member has lesser responsibilities as the senior continues to shoulder up to a reasonable period

Negatives :

1.Little or no privacy
2.Sharing of common expenses

However, I could find more positives in my personal experience ……..

But unfortunately, this great concept is virtually dead now and very few families follow this concept ….or no one probably ?

Why did this concept created by our forefathers is defunct now ??

Lets share our thoughts ……

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**mahadevan** · 26th April 2006, 11:06 PM

I share the same feelings, family is the greatest invention of mankind after GOD, joint family is the best solution for most of the social problems, I am in favor of a limited version of the joint family where the couple lives with their parents and childrens, not necessarily with the families of their siblings. Humans needs help when they are young and when they are old(second childhood) in between they can help others. In the west the young children are well taken care off but the older ones are left in a miserably position, this is what I prefer to call as animal models as manifested from the Lion to the birds. In India we are also moving from our traditional, staying with our parents to the nuclear family model. The most striking reason is the migration factor, when all the kids are scattered across the globe where would the parents be, in the era of free trade on every thing but for labor(human) movement. Even within India when people move from villages to cities the same problems persists but it is driven more by economic factors. Last but the most important is the attitudes of the women in India, whether it is the MIL or DIL role that they play and reluctance on all of us to evolve our ways of achieving a happy family without undue compromises on career etc.

**srivatsan** · 26th April 2006, 11:09 PM

It is in Histroy of Indians....(no no no....dont take it tooo far in the past.....just 20-50 years before)

**S.Balaji** · 27th April 2006, 12:04 AM

Mahadevan

You have echoed my thoughts . nice....

Is this new trend of small family also instrumental for the growing HOME FOR THE AGED ?

**P_R** · 27th April 2006, 12:37 AM

With we two ours one it is a sustainable system with less of the negatives mentioned. I am wondering how the system survived when it was common to have 6-7 children. Every generation someone would have had to break away and start on his own. Isn't it ?

**srivatsan** · 27th April 2006, 12:48 AM

Originally Posted by Prabhu Ram

With we two ours one it is a sustainable system with less of the negatives mentioned. I am wondering how the system survived when it was common to have 6-7 children. Every generation someone would have had to break away and start on his own. Isn't it ?

As Varna system was followed even before, 50 years, almost all of the family members would do the same job or we can simply say, the whole family would do the same job......Hence it was not a problem....but when they had to leave the system, they were not able to be in the same bonds and now it has become almost impossible...

**P_R** · 27th April 2006, 01:18 PM

Even if everone did the same job my surprise remains. Suppose there is a man and his wife (2 members) with a piece of farming land. Suppose the couple has 6 children. 3 women who leave after marriage and 3 men who get married (3X2 =6). When they have 6 children each, (even if you assume the grandparents would have passed away due to a low life expectancy) the household size would now be around 24. This number explodes with each passing generation. Even if the family acquires land or upps productivity, to maintain the same lifestyle, the land acquisition or productivity should grow faster than the rate of growth of family (with the binding assumption of the same job for the family).

So the system seems inherently unsustaiable without sufficient leakage (i.e. people breaking away at some stage).

I am able to understand the expansion of services and trade to a ceratin extent. But land still intrigues me.

**pradheep** · 27th April 2006, 06:17 PM

Dear friends
There are two reasons (one following the other) why our traditional joint family system broke to nuclear. The concept of accrueing wealth for children is the first step in breaking jointfamily system. Instead of having a common wealth among brother's children, when the concept of "My" children comes into picture,leads to disintegration of the family system. From this "my"comes the concept of my independence, my likes and dislikes. This is the second reason for this joint family systemdown fall. Our tradition always gave less importance to the individuality,but more for the common welfare. When the individual importance is given there isnoquestion about joint family. If we cannot adjust and live amongfamily memebers then where is the question of universal brotherhood?

Our concept of family was the joint family include grandparents, brothers family and children. Now family means wife husband and children. Everyone else is excluded.
In the west the importance of individuality is given so much importance that even the family system of husbnad wife and children is demolished.

**S.Balaji** · 27th April 2006, 07:58 PM

Pradeep .... nice exchange of thoughts

but tell me how this MY concept crept in ?

There has to be a significant shift in attitude to move from OURS to MY ....

can you pls explain

**pradheep** · 27th April 2006, 08:49 PM

The "MY" thought in royal families was the cause for wars."My" son thought of kaikeyi and Dritharastra was the root cause of Ramayana and Mahabharatha.

In India, in the post independence era, "MY" thought started popping up in the minds of the individuals, due to western influence. As I mentioned, the "I or my" VS comes from greed and all the social problems that we see now is due to this shift.