Family and the Hindu joint family: features, merits, disintegration and change
Sociology - Indian Society Continuity and Change · Unit III · Topic 9 of 16 · 4 min read
On this page
Cases checked to exist. Read the judgment before quoting a holding.
Every case cited here has been checked to exist — the citation resolves and names the right parties. The propositions attributed to each case have not been verified line by line against the judgment. Case names link through to the full judgment: read it before quoting a holding in an examination answer, and never carry a proposition from notes into court on trust.
1. Family
The family is the basic social group formed by marriage and blood ties. G.P. Murdock (1949) defined it as a social group characterised by common residence, economic cooperation and reproduction, including adults of both sexes, at least two of whom maintain a socially approved sexual relationship, and one or more children. Families are classified as:
- Nuclear: husband, wife and unmarried children.
- Joint or extended: two or more nuclear families related through the male line living together.
- By descent (patrilineal, matrilineal), residence (patrilocal, matrilocal, neolocal) and authority (patriarchal, matriarchal).
2. The joint family: definition
Iravati Karve (Kinship Organisation in India, 1953): a joint family is “a group of people who generally live under one roof, who eat food cooked at one hearth, who hold property in common and who participate in common family worship and are related to each other as some particular type of kindred.”
I.P. Desai treated jointness as a matter of degree, based on obligations fulfilled towards kin even when they live apart. He counted three generations or more as a traditional joint family.
3. Characteristics
- Large size and depth: three or more generations: grandparents, sons, their wives and children.
- Common residence: one house.
- Common kitchen: one hearth.
- Common property: held jointly. Under the Mitakshara school, sons acquire a right by birth in the coparcenary property; under Dayabhaga (Bengal) the right arises only on the father’s death. Since the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005, daughters are coparceners by birth like sons.
- Common worship: family deity and shared rites.
- Authority of the karta: the eldest male manages property and takes decisions; the eldest woman manages the household.
- Mutual rights and obligations: each member works according to ability and receives according to need.
- Patrilineal and patrilocal in most of India (the Nair tharavad of Kerala was the matrilineal exception).
- Subordination of individual to family interest.
4. Advantages and disadvantages
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| Social security for the old, sick, widowed and orphaned | Idleness: earning members carry dependants |
| Economy of scale in expenses | Lack of privacy, especially for young couples |
| Division of labour and care of children | Low status of women, dominance of the karta |
| Preserves property from fragmentation | Quarrels, often among women and over property |
| Transmits culture and values | Hinders individual initiative and mobility |
| Sense of discipline and cooperation | Encourages early marriage and large families |
5. Causes of disintegration
- Industrialisation: work moved from household to factory and office; wages are earned individually.
- Urbanisation and migration: small urban housing and movement for jobs.
- Education, especially of women; new ideas of individualism and equality.
- Legislation: the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (divorce), the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 and its 2005 amendment (shares for daughters, ease of partition), the Hindu Gains of Learning Act, 1930 (a member’s earnings from education are his separate property).
- Employment of women and their economic independence.
- Change in the status of women and conflicts within the household.
- Transport and communication that allow kin to live apart yet in touch.
6. Changes in the family (C.N. Shankar Rao)
- Shift from joint to nuclear households, though with continuing joint-family obligations (I.P. Desai, A.M. Shah).
- Decline in the karta’s authority; more democratic decisions.
- Improved status of women: education, employment, property rights.
- Loss of functions to other institutions: education to schools, health to hospitals, production to factories, security to the State.
- Smaller families and family planning.
- Greater instability: divorce, desertion, separation.
- New forms: single-parent households, dual-career families, elderly living alone.
How this is examined
January 2026 (100 marks): “Examine the features of joint family in India”, 16 marks. January 2026 (80 marks): “Examine the concept of family among Hindus”, 10 marks. Answer: definition (Karve), the nine characteristics, advantages and disadvantages, then causes of disintegration in six or seven points. Changes in family is a separate syllabus head and is set as an essay in some sessions.
Now try the real questions: Sociology - Indian Society Continuity and Change past question papers.