Pattern and Characteristics of Rural Family

Rural Family

The family is the most important Institution Constituting rural society. It has been its very foundation. It plays a decisive role in the material and cultural life of the rural aggregate and in molding the psychological characteristics of the rural individual as well as the rural collectivity. There are some thinkers, who believe that family and family impress their stamp on the entire rural structure. Family permeates it from top to bottom. A systematic study of rural family, on its structure, functions, evolution, and interrelations with other institutions of the rural society is vitally necessary for the study of the institution of rural family. Within it is found many types and patterns of family organization which humanity has hitherto evolved.’

Pattern of Rural Family 

Prof. Riverse has brought out four types of institutions which have been designated by the term family, viz., 

1. The clan, 
2. The matrilocal joint family, 
3. The patrilocal joint family and 
4. The individual family. 

The each of these is composed of parents and minor children only.

There is a group of sociologists according to which ‘these four types reveal four main stages of the evolution of the family form corresponding to four stages in the evolution of society. The first type corresponds to the hunting and food gathering stage of social evolution; the second to the phase of hoe agriculture and the beginnings of domestication of animals, the third-a classic type-to the phase of agricultural economy based on the plugh and domestication of anumals, and finally, the fourth type to the modern industrial capitalist phase of human existence. As a result of the growth of market economy in the agrarian area and of the impact of urban socio-economic forces on the rural society, the last type is increasingly becoming predominant today. The Indian rural society facilitates a great laboratory to test this view, since it includes within its fold the relics of the clan as well as matrilocal and patrilocal family types and the recent individual family group also. A systematic study of the structure and functions of these various family types and their correlation with the stages of civilization to which they correspond throws a flood light on the history of Indian humanity.

Family Pattern in the Villages- The Patriarchial Joint Family. In fully developed agrarian societies depending on plough agriculture, including India, patriarchial joint family has been found to be the predominant family form in rural areas. Sociologists studying rural problems have made a close study of the characteristics of this type of family. ‘They have observed the basic structural, psychosocial, and functional features of this type of the rural family which distinguish it sharply from the urban family.’

Characteristics of Rural Family

1. Homogeneity: The rural family enjoys greater degree of homogeneity, stability. These are more integrated and organically functioning than the urban family. The ties binding the members of the former, for instance the husband and the wife, parents and children, are stronger and last longer in comparison to their counterparts in the urban families. This is apparent from the situation prevailing in the villages.
2. Peasant Household: The rural family is generally based on the peasant household. ‘All its members are engaged in the agricultural occupation.’ Work is divided among them on lines of age and sex distinctions. ‘The community house, common land and common economic functions along with the common kinship bond create the peasant household’.
3. Discipline and Interdependence: The rural family enforces greater discipline among its members than the urban family. The role of family becomes wider because ‘there is considerably less state or public provision for meeting the educational, cultural, or social needs of the people in the rural area than in the urban, the rural family attempts also to satisfy these needs of its members.’ Thus a family serves as a school, a recreation center, a maternity or a non-maternity home. It looks after the problems of its member in every aspect of life.
4. Dominance of Family Ego: In contrast to the urban family ‘the interdependence of the member of the rural family and the dependence of its individual member of it are, far greater. This joints its members into a homogeneous, compact, egoistic unit, and further strengthens emotions of solidarity and cooperation among them and inculcates in them the family pride”.
5. Authority of the Father: The rural family is far more integrated and disciplined unit than the urban family because the head of the rural family exercises almost absolute power over its members. It is he who distributes the work of the peasant household among the family members on lines of sex and age differences; arranges marriages of sons, daughters, nephews and nieces; administers the joint family property according to his wisdom; and trains the youngsters for future agricultural work and social life. He is the source of all the initiatives and authority. In fact ‘the head of the family has had the rights and authority to be the ruler, the priest, the teacher, the educator and the manager of the family.
6. Closer Participation in Various Activities: The members of a rural family being engaged in work connected with the peasant household spend practically the whole day together. Whereas the members of the urban family engaged in different occupations or being educated outside home, spend only a small portion of the day together. Even their recreational centers such as clubs and others lie outside the home. Hence the home becomes only a temporary nightshade for the members of the urban family. This is one of the reasons of disorganization.