SOCIAL INSTITUTION:CONTINUITY AND CHANGE

N UCLEAR AND E XTENDED F AMILY A nuclear family consists of only one set of parents and their children. An extended family (commonly known as the ‘joint family’) can take different forms, but has more than one couple, and often more than two generations, living together. This could be a set of brothers with their individual families, or an elderly couple with their sons and grandsons and their respective families. The extended family often is seen as symptomatic of India.

Yet this is by no means the dominant form now or earlier. It was confined to certain sections and certain regions of the community. Indeed the term ‘joint family’ itself is not a native category. As I.P.

Desai observes, “The expression ‘joint family’ is not the translation of any Indian word like that. It is interesting to note that the words used for joint family in most of the Indian languages are the equivalents of translations of the English word ‘joint family’.” (Desai : )