Joint Family/Extended Family – Behavioral sciences explore the cognitive processes within organisms and the behavioral interactions between organisms in the natural world. It involves the systematic analysis and investigation of human and animal behavior through the study of the past, controlled and naturalistic observation of the present and disciplined scientific experimentation and modeling.
It attempts to accomplish legitimate, objective conclusions through rigorous formulations and observation. Generally, behavior science deals primarily with human action and often seeks to generalize about human behavior as it relates to society.
Joint Family/Extended Family
Joint family is also known as undivided family and sometimes as extended family. It normally consists of members who at least belong to three generations. Husband and wife, their married and unmarried children, their married and unmarried grandchildren.
Definition of Joint Family
According to Smt. Iravathi Karve
“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”
According to K. M. Kapadia,
“Joint Family is a group formed not only of a couple and their children, but also other relations either from father’s side of from mother’s side depending on whether the joint family is patrilineal or matrilineal.”
According to E. A. Rose,
“Joint family is a kind of entity of those related to each other as some type of kindred. Co- residence, common property and commensality, co-worship as well as the observance of certain rights and obligations are some of the essential features of the joint family”.
Function of Joint Family
Economic Functions :
If we consider the role of joint family from the economic point of view, a number of advantages become visible:
- First of all, it hinders the sub-division or fragmentation of the landed property. This results in increased production,
- Secondly, all the members, men, women and children, in a joint family perform their work on a co-operative basis,
- Thirdly, due to co-operative work, hardly any amount of money is spent on hired labor.
- On the other hand, saving is done as the household articles are purchased collectively and as the money which would have been spent on hired labor is saved.
Protective Function:
- The joint family acts as a protective home for those who are physically weak or handicapped.
- It also provides protection to mentally weak members of the family.
- It is an asylum for the orphans and a comfortable home for the sick, old and destitute.
Recreational Function:
- The members of a joint family are provided with many means of recreation in a friendly and stimulating atmosphere.
- The sources of recreation in a joint family are the stammering of infants, affection of mother, love and emotion among siblings and the joking relationships.
Acting as an agency of social control:
- The joint family is an informal agency of social control. It controls the harmful and deviant tendencies of young members.
- It suppresses the anti-social and unsociable activities of its members.
Division of Labor:
- Although all the members of a joint family work, they do not do the similar work. Rather they are given work in accordance with their own capacities
Socialism in wealth:
- In joint family socialism prevails because it maintains the socialistic ideal of “from each according to his ability and to each according to his needs”.
- Every member of the joint family performs his duty in accordance with his capacity and simultaneously consumes according to his necessity.
Characteristics of Joint Family
1. Common residence:
- Characteristic feature of the joint family. It implies that all the members live together one roof.
- The traditional Bangladeshi joint family consisted of several family units. But although units lived together in a single house.
2. Common Property:
- Another significant feature of the joint family is that the members hold property, both movable and immovable, in common.
- The head of the household also maintains a common fund, which pulls together the earnings of all the members.
- Although the members of the joint family earn according to their capacity, the consumption is not delimited to their earnings. Rather they consume in accordance with the necessity.
3. Joint Kitchen:
- The presence of a joint -family is also felt due to the existence of a common kitchen the spouse of the head of the family or an aged woman of the family acts as the supervisor of the other female members working in the kitchen.
4. Common Religious believe:
- The members of a joint family believe in common god.
- Religion is so much integrated with the Muslim social life that several religious how ceremonies and rituals are performed in a collects manner. The younger generation learns the religious practices from the older generation.
5. Kindred Relationship:
- The members of the joint family are bound together through blood relationship.
- Parents and children, brothers and sisters, grandparents and grandchildren are all tied by kinship bonds and are accommodated under the same roof.
6. Consciousness of mutual rights and obligations:
- All the members of the joint family, except the head or ‘Karta’, have equal rights and obligations. The members are always conscious of these rights and obligations it.
- This consciousness maintains the joint -family as a closely-knit unit.
- However, the head of the joint family appears more equal than other members in regard to the rights and obligations .
7. Rule of the Head:
- The eldest married male member of the family, known as the ‘Karta’ is the head of a joint- family.
- The ‘Karta’ possesses absolute authority over all the members of the family. His decision is also binding on all the family matters.
8. Their Generation Depth:
- The joint family comprises of persons belonging to at least three generations. Many time, it may be supplemented by other relatives like cousins, great grandsons, unc Taunts, etc.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Joint Family
Advantages (Merits) of Joint Family
The following are the advantages of joint -family system,
Economy:
- The collective cooking, shelter and consumption brings down the cost of expenditure.
- Since things are consumed in large quantities they are secured at economic prices. Within small means a large family can be maintained if it lives jointly.
Division of labor:
- It secures the advantages of the division of labor. Every member in the family is given work according to his abilities without being taxed unduly.
- Every phase of family life is managed by all members including women and children.
Social Insurance:
- In the joint -family the orphans find a comfortable asylum instead of being thrown out. Similarly, widows are assured of their proper living for whom remarriage in India is unthinkable.it
- The joint family acts as a social insurance company for the old, sick and incapacitated.
Social Virtues:
- It fosters great virtues like sacrifice, affection, co-operation, spirit of selflessness, broad mindedness among its members and makes the family a cradle of social virtues.
- Under the care of elders the undesirable and antisocial tendencies of the young are checked and they are prevented from going astray. They learn of exercise self-control.
- All members learn to obey family rules and respect their elders.
Opportunity for Leisure:
- It provides opportunities for leisure to the members.
- The female members divide the household work and finish it within a little time spending the rest of it in leisure.
Socialism:
- According to Sir Henry Maine, the joint -family is like a corporation where trustee is the father.
- Everyone in the joint family works according to his capabilities but obtains according to his needs.
- Thus it realizes the socialistic ideal, from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
It Provides Minimum Existence:
- In joint family, each member earns according to his capacity and gets according to his needs.
- Thus each member is assured of food, shelter and clothing.
Disadvantages of Joint Family System:
The main disadvantages of the system are said to be following:
Society is the Sufferer
- In a joint family, members do not put in maximum efforts.
- Therefore, their full potentials are not realized. As a result society suffers.
It Perpetuates Orthodoxy:
- The head of the family is generally the old man who is not ready to accept changes and break customs and traditions which the family is pursuing for years.
Leads to Quarrels:
- A joint -family is usually unwieldy. Temperaments of members are bound to differ and in an unwieldy family, time and again interest of the members in one way or the other is bound to be forgotten.
- This leads to family disputes.
Hindrance in Development:
- Sometimes progress and development of members is hindered since protection is available at every stage.
- The whole environment of the family is not congenial for growth of the individual because he is bound down by the minutest rules and regulations framed by the head of the family who looks upon men and women as children even when they obtain adulthood.
Home for Idlers:
- Joint family is the home for idlers and drones as the non- earning members do not want to earn their livelihood.
- When a person can eat comfortably without exerting himself, he is unlikely to indulge in any strenuous activity.
Comparison between Joint Family and Nuclear Family:
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