Indian Family System

The major issues in life are pretty much the same for all of us: education, love, marriage, raising children, providing for old age and ill health - one’s own and for one’s parents or children. Depending on our cultural heritage, we devise different ways of achieving these ends. The goals are very similar, but we differ in our emphasis on competing values. This leads to different trade-offs and consequently different pathologies. The joint-family and the nuclear family both have their own advantages and disadvantages – different trade-offs, different problems.
What do I mean by this? To say that western societies value individuality while eastern cultures (India, China, Korea etc.) emphasize kinship ties would be reductionist, but a reasonable starting point, for the sake of argument. In the best case scenario, individualism enables someone like Bill Gates to drop out of Harvard and make history. I imagine that, in a more traditional society which emphasizes conformity, such as India, a similar conversation would go something along these lines (choose your favourite voice for ‘concerned joint-family elder’ who is ‘experienced’, so knows ‘everything’): “ … arey beta, padayee chod kar yeh kampney-wampney ishtaart karney ki itni jaldi bhi kya hai? abhi jawaan ho, tumhari saari zindagi baaki hai …. padayee khatm kar lo, shaadi kar lo … uske baad agar tum chaaho to sirf ek nahin, chaar kampney banwa denge tumhaare liye ..haan ! main khud minishterji se baat karoonga.. abhi apni maa ka bhi thoda khayal rakho aur yeh zid chod dena!” Young Babloo Gates is appropriately persuaded, goes along, graduates with great grades, goes to IIM, joins Infosys and lives happily ever after, his genius lost to history. Maybe Uncleji saved young Babloo from premature failure, maybe not, who knows? Emphasis on stability and security – trade-off is loss of individuality. On the other hand, there was a case in Gloucester, MA, a few years ago, where a group of 17 teenage girls, all under 16, made a pact to become single mothers and got pregnant simultaneously, one of them by a 24 year old homeless man. Emphasis on individuality (it’s my life, I can decide what I want) – pathology is an irrevocable choice made in haste. Obviously I am choosing my examples, real or imagined, to make a point. The point being that when you emphasize one value, you often (though not always) make a compromise on another. On one level, these trade-offs enable us to flourish, but on another level they create their own pathologies.
What does this have to do with joint / nuclear family? The nuclear family is a fairly recent invention even in the west, made possible by mobility and affluence. It is an extension of ‘individuality’ to the family level. A whole host of socio-economic structures have evolved to sustain this. Activities which were once in the private family domain are now in the external commercial domain. Daycare, Medicare/Medicaid, unemployment benefits, old-age homes, hospice care for the terminally ill and so on and so on. If you are unemployed in India, your unemployment insurance is your family! The joint-family is a basic pooled-risk arrangement, a form of insurance. You trade away some of your privacy and individuality in return for security – you will be taken care of when you are ill, if a husband dies, the wife’s brother or the joint family will often provide for / educate the young kids … and so on. I am sure we have all seen examples of this. I can relate many. The trade-offs are of course that there is no privacy, everybody feels compelled to know everything, all boundaries degenerate into “…kya tum par mera koi haq nahin…?”, leading to the basic pathology of a never-ending guilt trip or the more extreme cases recounted so movingly in these posts on IL. But then, the advantage, in situations where pathologies are minimized is that one does not often worry about homelessness because of a job loss or bankruptcy following illness, as people do in the US! But the crucial point to remember is this: even in the affluent societies of the west, the socio-economic buffers which make this level of individualism and the nuclear family possible are slowly becoming economically unsustainable. It is now common in Italy for young couples to live with their parents. In the US and Europe, attempts to trim social safety nets are gaining ground. The US Congress recently voted to block the extension of unemployment benefits to people who have been unable to find jobs after the recent recession. Who can they turn to but family? Social security is expected to go bankrupt by all projections, with only the date varying between one analysis and another. The joint-family is the Indian version of Social Security. When I hear a US senator holding forth eloquently on how we must encourage individual responsibility and accountability and how the government cannot do everything for you, I hear him say – “Guys! You have to more like India! No unemployment-benefits, no Medicare/Medicaid, no social security!” Subtext - go build a joint-family …. (or a Co-Op, or a commune!). When Jet Blue fired new hires in India recently and then the CEO hired them back, after tearful pleas from some of the young women, I would argue that what we saw was a joint-family drama in some sense, not a purely economic one … the CEO could not see himself as an individual isolated from all the others in this scene …. he became CEO-Chacha, hiring back his young nieces.
I could go on and on, but I’m sure you get my general drift. Same problems, different emphasis, different trade-offs, different benefits, different pathologies. I sort of like the extended family in its good incarnation …. I like it that I know and was / am close to all my grandparents, uncles / aunts and cousins, unlike many families in the US. I liked the mixed demographics of families I knew as a child. Kids, young families, old people all in one big mélange rather than the stratified demographics in the US with little niches for different age-groups with very little overlap. I don’t really like it when I see a little old lady shuffling slowly along the street where I live, clutching a grocery bag in the arthritic fingers of one hand and her walking stick on the other – I would rather that she send her little grandson over to the corner shop. When I visited friends as a child, I had to go do my pranaams to their old grandmas keeping an eagle’s eye on all the goings-on. She would not exist in a nuclear family and the picture would not be the same without her. I would not want to be a burden on my children, if I had any, but then I would prefer that, when the time comes, my parents die quietly in their sleep at home with me around instead of at the “Sunshine Retirement Village” (Where 80 is the new 40! We are there to help you – talk to us about our Platinum Reverse Mortgage Retirement Plan!) with only other old people for company. But then of course, I am only all too aware of the pathologies of the joint-family – the only reason I have not written about them here is that these pages on IL already bear painful testimony to its failures.
In the end, it’s like most things in life – the ideal compromise lies somewhere between excessive individuality and suffocating expectations of conformity, somewhere between freedom and security, between a not so ‘nuclear’ nuclear family and a not joined-at-hip joint family, some modified version where both individuality and security can flourish. Indian families would do well to encourage and tolerate more individuality and privacy while still retaining the support structures of an extended family and perhaps western societies can learn something from us too!

 

CW,This is gross generalisation.

I agree with Peatree and she has put in a very nice way.Why do you give so much importance to your spouse only?We do not have the art or brilliance to live in a joint family these days and we choose the easy way out.BEING ALONE.We have now started saying we "NEED' a social life.But do we ever think of such things in joint family?It comes very naturally isn't it?

My maid and her sister are working here in Qatar to care care of their families (not individula families the whole family) back home.The way she says "En thabi ponnu romba vaayaagitaalaam.Romba vaayadi madam athu(my brother's daughter is very talkative)" with so much pride is just :thumbsup.I was thinking how we are.These days being so much westernized , we don't even help our brothers or sisters in case of emergency.We give lectures saying , he should have taken an insurance or should have planned or should have saved blah..blah...IMO , Nuclear family has made us loners and to an extent made us less adjusting and less helping also.


To me Joint family gives sound health and sound mind.We are just choosing nuclear family for our convienience.

Yes, there are disadvatages in joint family too but I think those are on individual levels rather than the system itself.JMO.

 

I prefer/like nuclear family system,although I live a Joint family system.

It enhances emotional bonding between couples and make them independent in decision making.

 

well said. even i feel it that way. whatever i may have to face or deal with the outside world, at the end of the day my family, my home is my haven and i dont want to hide my emotions, put up false smiles, manipulate what i may get if i give anything in return and all that, i want to be the true ME.

 

Oh CanWait, I wanted to add one other thing to my earlier post.

From the perspective of myself as a kid (i.e. when I was a kid agewise, you can still say I am one ), I am REALLY GLAD that I grew up in a JointFamily. It was a lot of fun being with my Grandparents when I come home from school and just in general as well. Both my parents were working, so they were relatively busy folks, and I was VERY HAPPY that I had company in the form of grandparents and I have lot of fond memories of my childhood.

So, while today even I am in a nuclear family, from my own perspective as a kid, I really enjoyed being around grandparents and not just visiting them once in a few months or a year.

 

This is something that I fear my kids will miss out on, with parents advancing age and our inability to make a decision to just quit everything here in the US to go back to India.

I have extremely fond memories as well of living with an elderly person in the house. In my case, it was not even a relative, but the lady who used to cook for my dad's family when he was a kid. She had no family of her own and outlived my own grandparents. Since I was the youngest child in the family, I had not really had a chance to experience living with grandparents, my mom decided that she would live with us so that like my cousins, my sister and I would also have the experience of having an older person at home. Sure, my mom had to make a lot of adjustments with that paati living with us, but never was that ever a problem at anytime. In her last days, my mom did everything from feeding her to cleaning her and my dad and uncles performed her rites when she passed away. I think that has taught me a LOT about adjustment and sensitivity to others' needs, which I don't think I would have had learned otherwise.

See Kruba, as ASG mentioned earlier, there is indeed completely different perspectives on everything. My take on this is as long as there is complete acceptance, adjusting will come naturally. So in my opinion, it is not necessary that one will need to take special efforts to bring in the adjustment. Even now, sharing living space with my husband, I can't sometimes do whatever it is that I want to do and be however it is that I want to be. But then I do not mind that, and sometimes don't even realize that I often don't get to do what, or be how I want to be. And that is because I have completely accepted my husband with all his idiosyncrasies. And I feel when I can do this for my husband, why not for the people that are important to him? After all, I am sure living together, they are also having to make adjustments in return, accepting me in all my weirdness and idiosyncrasies!

So after all that story, it again just sings that same old tune - to each, his own! Each person has a different threshold for being able to adjust and that, I believe is what is a major factor on whether they will fit well into a JF system or not.

 

I have a very different view point on this subject. I think both JF or Nuclear family system have their own plus and minus. But all what matters is what the indivuduals of the family wants.. Its all upto the comfort levels of the persons who involved in this system.

I personally feel, if you are married to a person from your hormogeneus group (same caste, same religion, same culture, food and educational background) it doesn't make much difference to continue your life in a JF system..

But if you are married to a person from a different society/religion and that too a love marriage, then it is a nightmare to adjust with JF life unless the DIL is an angel.

Reason being, the difference of behaviour, opinions, culture and other values would always welcome new sets of issues and misunderstandings when you live together with a group of people who shares a completly different values than yours.

To quote one: I share a reasonanble (relatively good) relationship with my MIL. But I still prefer to live separately and not with her.
Reason... She is extremly orthodox Hindu woman, whereas I have been brought up in a very modern Christian way of life. Her beliefs and myths always irritate me when she really wants to impose her thoughts in our personal matters. I know she is not wrong, but really concerned towards me/my family, but it is just too much for me to handle as I am not used this way.

Eg: A couple of days back, one of my best friends' dad has passed away. I wanted to go to their home immediately as my friend is really close to me. But my MIL said I shouldn't go to a funeral house at night as I am carrying a baby. Then she also stopped my DH by saying some similar reasons. The next day, I was only allowed to participate a couple of hrs in their home, then she asked me not to eat or drink anything at their home...
Comeon... I am Christian, living alone in our home with my DH who has no complaints over it... My parents are all OK with whatever I do, and I have had no one in my life to restrict my acts everytime.. I think I am an adult and I know what I am doing... And the dead person is my best friend's dad, who is more of my dad. I felt damn irritated and beared all this because of my LO as I didn't want to overdo anything when someone repeatedly saying that my acts would harm my baby (don't know how).

So, what would have happened if I was living with them in a JF under one roof...????? Problems right???
But if I was a DIL from their hormogeneus group and I also have the same values and beliefs, then I would have definitely praised my MIL for her concerns towards me and my LO... So JF doesn't make much difference.

JMO

 

I agree with Tugga and some of the other users. The JF works well if all have a similar outlook on life/goals, traditions, outlook etc. For eg if one set is very liberal minded and the other set is very traditional, it will take a lot of adjustments from each side to make it happy for all included. but often the burden of adjustment falls on the new member of the family - usually reason being the PIL's are old and cannot change. How in this circumstance would the new member be happy??? Knowing that she would have to sacrifice a lot of her beliefs in order to live in a JF??? Where do we draw the line? Personally I like to come home from work and just sit and relax instead of worrying what is the next criticism MIL would make.