Explain the factors responsible for the disintegration of joint family system in India

The institution of joint family is very old. The fact now is that there is a disintegration of this system of familial organization. No single factor can be pointed out as the sole cause of this disintegration. The breakdown of the joint family in India has often been forecast on the grounds that joint families were suited to the old agricultural societies but are dysfunctional under present conditions. Hence a sharp break between the ‘traditional’ joint family and the ‘modern’ nuclear family is supposed to occur. However this view has been challenged by some studies in this area. It is asserted on the basis of these studies that ‘the form of the family is not so closely linked to the type of economic organization.

It is recognized by the most students of the family, in certain terms that there is a general tendency in modern societies toward placing greater importance on the conjugal bond between husband and wife and toward decreasing the demands of the consanguine ties, especially those among siblings, but this is a long term trend rather than a cause for abrupt revision of family relations. Besides the studies conducted by Kapadia (1966) and Singer (1968), A.M.Shah is one of the scholars who has sharply questioned the approach to family studies that assumes ‘an inevitable trend from large and complex to small and simple households. He points out that the normal, cyclical development of an Indian family must be distinguished from basic changes in family organization.

Disintegration of Joint Family

Major factors that have acted as agents of disintegration of joint family system are briefly discussed below:

The following factors are responsible for its disintegration

1. Industrialization: The joint family is most suited to agricultural families as the members did not look for jobs. But in wake of industrialization and the establishment of new factories have motivated the workers from the villages move to the cities and it breaks up the joint family. Industrialization affected the cottage and village industries and workers started searching for jobs in industrial towns.
2. Extension of Communications and Transport: Now the villagers are no more isolated from other areas. Earlier, difficulties of communication and travel in ancient times compelled all the members of the family to live together and carry on the family occupation in agriculture and trade jointly. Today when the means of communication and transportation have been extended, it is no longer necessary for men 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 adopt some other trade and when they adopt a trade different from the family’s trade, they establish a new home.
3. Decline of Agricultural and Village Industries: 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 with the result that the village industries suffer a loss and after some time close down. With the closing down of the village industry the workers in villages also are compelled to go to the city to find a job there.
4. Lack of Entertainment and Urban Luster: Besides the decline of agriculture and trade there are other causes as well which induce people to move to the city. These are due to lack of facilities for entertainment and recreation, less opportunities for employment for the educated and inadequate opportunities for the education of children.
5. Impact of the West: Westernization, to some extent, is also responsible for the disintegration. India today has been greatly influenced in the social outlook by Western thought and ideology. Out modern laws relating to marriage and divorce has been enacted on Western patter. The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 and the Hindu Succession Act, 1995 have influence the solidarity of the joint family. As a consequence of the Hindu Marriage Act, the number of divorces is increasing. The Hindu Succession Act has given to the girls the right to share equally in the property of their father. The result is that joint family is disintegrating at a rapid rate. Our education is entirely foreign in outlook and approach. We have begun to look at the family as a partnership and not as a sacrament. Our view especially of the young men and women and family relations have undergone a change. The influence of individualism has made deep in roads in the Indian outlook. The Civil Marriage Act gave a blow to the authority of the family head over its members. The educated young men and women prefer to live a married life separate from the family. All this has contributed to the disintegration of joint family.
6. Changing Role of Women: There has been a change in the role of women in the society. More worked change is becoming apparent in the family roles of women. The women of the household are not so firmly dependent on the men and so segregated from them as they used to be. A wife’s fate is not quite so totally dependent on her husband in that windows are now being allowed to remarry in some of the higher castes to in which widow remarriage used to be absolutely prohibited. It has found that the wives of the educated men usually have some education also and they gain in personal confidence because of their education. Such women do not accept the complete sub-ordination of the young wife as readily as did then uneducated mother and grandmothers. Now women resist oppression and with the growing enlightenment, they are becoming more and more independent. This has contributed towards the emergence of nuclear families.
7. Family Quarrels: In the joint family there is bound to be clashes between the members because of their diverse interests, different incomes. In such a household, the feminine quarrels become a matter of routine affair. Those who are married face several hardships. It becomes difficult in these circumstances to live peacefully in a joint family and the consequence is the disintegration of the joint family system.
8. Over-population, scarcity and Problems of Accommodation: Increase in population has brought an additional pressure upon the agricultural land, leading to unemployment, reduced per capital income, food problem and thus disintegration in the joint family system.

Scarcity of materials required for living has created fissures in the joint living. Problem of accommodation especially in urban areas has been one of the leading causes of the disintegration of joint family system.

In addition to these factors, there have been other causes responsible for the disintegration of the joint family system. Legal provisions giving sweeping powers to the Karta of the joint family caused rapid division in the family property between brothers immediately after the death of their father. Laws providing better deal to the women in the society have also promoted the cause of the nuclear families.