WOMEN AND FAMILY IN INDIA — CONTINUITY AND CHANGE

LEELA GULATI

Family, caste and community have dominated the entire texture of Indian society from ancient times.
Despite urbanisation and industrialisation, the family continues to play a central role in the lives of the
Indians. This paper undertakes a sociodemographic analysis of the family in India and brings to light
several features that have implications for policy and highlights the need for greater public and
government assistance to this social institution that serves as a major support agent for family members
in difficult situations.

Leela Gulati is Associate Fellow, Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram.

Population and Households

India's population of 846 million in 1991 lives in 152 million households. These
households are further divided into 112 million rural and 40 million urban house-
holds.
There is considerable overlapping between the concepts of family and household.
The Indian census defines a household as a group of persons normally living
together and taking food from a common kitchen. The household members might
or might not be related to one another. The family may be broadly perceived as a
unit of two or more persons united by the ties of marriage, blood adoption or
consensual unions. It is considered the basic unit of society and is a link between
continuity and change (TISS, 1993). For the purpose of this paper, the terms, family
and household will be used interchangeably.

Religious Composition of Households

The Indian population can be divided on the basis of its religious composition. In
1981, 82.35 per cent were Hindus followed by 11.74 per cent Muslims, 2.44 per cent
Christians, 1.97 per cent Sikhs and others 1.57 per cent.
Family Studies in India
From ancient times, the family, caste, and community have dominated the entire
texture of Indian society (Desai, 1960). Family has been the dominating institution
both in the life of the individual and in the life of the community. There was virtually
no scope to exist without being a member of a family.
Studies on the Indian family have been sporadic. Nevertheless three distinct periods,
each with a specific concern, can be identified.
In the first phase, during the classical period, the earliest writings on the Hindu family
were found in the Indian scriptures, namely, the Grihya Sutras and the Dharma
Shastras. These contained detailed guidelines of all family rituals, prescribed roles
of family members, and the 'Family Gods' (Kapadia, 1955). The material covered in
these classics concerned only the Hindus and among them only the higher castes
(Srinivas, 1980).
134 Leela Gulati

In the second phase, during the colonial period, the interest in the understanding of
the Indian family and its social structure came from the British. They were baffled
by the complexities of the Indian family and the peculiar customs that existed in India
particularly concerning some of the family formation and dissolution variables.

Their interest began in the early nineteenth century. The initial concern rose from a
need to understand the Indian family so that decisions could be taken in the event
of family disputes. 1 When the British assumed judicial responsibility in India, several
diverse systems of law existed. Not only were there literary traditions of Hanafi and
Ithna Ashari Muslim Law and the Dayabhaga and Mitakshara schools of Hindu Law,
but there were also numerous practical traditions of Customary Law, applicable to
caste, tribe, lineage or family group (Carroll, 1983). It was during this phase that the
plight of Indian women came to the forefront. Major legislations were introduced to
ameliorate the condition of Indian women in the family. Table 1 shows the major
legislations undertaken during these hundred years. Some of the most important
studies undertaken during this period included those on various Indian castes and
tribes.

In the third phase, during the post-independence years, studies on the Indian family
were undertaken to understand the changes in family size, type and composition as
a result of the impact of modernisation and urbanisation. This period also saw many
legislations concerning the Indian family. The most important piece of legislation
was the Hindu Succession Act passed in 1956. It gave the Indian woman full
ownership in the property inherited or acquired by her. Women inherit property
equally with men now. The other important measures were the Hindu Marriage Act
of 1955, the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961 and the Divorce Reform Act of 1969.

Family Structure and Demography

The Importance of Marriage

Marriage is one of the most important family formation variables in India. The
institution of marriage and the event of child bearing are considered so essential for
family life that couples staying together without marriage, single-parent families and
childless families are not accepted as complete or normal families (TISS, 1993).
Indian society can be said to be totally preoccupied with marriage, followed by birth
of children within marriage, and subscribe to the universality of marriage for all its

1 In assuming judicial powers and responsibilities over Indian territory in the late eighteenth
century, the British rulers promised their Indian subjects that the personal laws administered to
them would be those of their own respective religious community — a promise reiterated in
every act establishing further courts and expanding the jurisdiction of the legal system. For the
Hindus (particularly upper caste Hindus) this meant that the British-Indian courts assumed the
responsibility of administering textual Hindu Law (Dayabhaga or Mitakshara as appropriate) in
suits concerning such matters as marriage, adoption, succession, and legitimacy to which the
parties were Hindus. In order to fulfil this promise, the British appointed Indian pandits to
expound the Hindu Law and advise the courts on questions concerning Hindu Law coming
before them; and undertook to collect, compile, and translate standard legal texts which were
then recognised by the British-Indian legal system as authoritative. By the mid-nineteenth
century the texts had replaced the pandits as the repositories of Hindu Law (Carroll, 1983).
 Women and Family in India — Continuity and Change 135

members, men or women, able-bodied or disabled. Moreover, marriage, particularly

in the case of girls, has to be arranged early and within the same caste groups.
Table 1
Colonial and Post-Colonial Legislations related to the Indian family
136 Leela Gulati

Year Legislation Place Implications

1918 Mappilla Malabar Self-acquired property of Mappillas (who are

Succession Act matrilineal) to be governed by Muslim Law.
1920 Cochin Nayar Cochin • Sambandham was recognised as legal marriage.
Regulation • Branches of a matrilineal family permitted to divide
and separate.
• Half of the intestate Nayar male's self-acquired
property could be claimed by wife and children.
1925 Trayancore Nayar Travancore • Individual right to demand division of family and
Regulation I per capita sharing of assets.
• Intestate Nayar male's self-acquired property
could be fully claimed by wife and children.
1933 Madras Malabar • Sambandham was recognised as legal marriage.
Marumakkathayam • Mother, wife and children declared heirs of
Act self-acquired property.
• Tawazis could demand partition of family assets.
1938 Cochin Nayar Cochin Nayar individual's right to seek per capita partition of
Regulation II family assets.
1956 Hindu Succession All over Right to per capita partition was extended to
Act India matrilineal families in Malabar also.
1958 Kerala All over Right of wife and children to the entire self-acquired
Marumakkathayam Kerala property of intestate male extended to matrilineal
Act families of Malabar also.
1976 Joint Hindu Family Kerala Kerala Government withdrawal of the recognition
System (Abolition) (corporateness) of matrilineal taravad.

Source; Kumar, 1993; Minattur, 1975; Srinivas, 1980; Varma, 1993.

Rules arid Regulations Regarding Marriage

Marriage in India consists more or less of formal rules and regulations and is an
institution that has promoted patriarchy in the family, especially, in the upper
economic groups where property is the base. Marriage is generally arranged by the
parents, is considered sacrosanct and for life and is generally monogamous.
Patriarchy is one of the main features of the Indian family. Patriarchy generally leads
to patrilocality which separate the woman from her natal family home after marriage.
A woman often does not have the title to the matrimonial home in which she
concentrates all her time and energy. In the case of death of her husband or
desertion or divorce, she is often rendered destitute as she neither has a home in
her family of marriage, nor in her natal family which has given her away. Even in
matrilineal and matrilocal cultures, patriarchy seems to be prevalent in the form of
power held by the brother and not by the woman herself (TISS, 1993).

In the patriarchal structure, roles and responsibilities, control and distribution of

resources within the family are strictly determined by age, gender and generation.
Control over resources and assumption of superiority give the man the authority to
make decisions about his dependents which would mainly include women and
children (TISS, 1993). Within marriage women do not enjoy any reproductive rights;
 Women and Family in India — Continuity and Change 137

these are exercised by the husbands and their family members both on the question
of numbers, timing and the sex composition of the children.
Pre-Puberty Marriage
Until the 1930s early marriage meant pre-puberty marriage which had very serious
implications for the girls. Pre-puberty marriage meant sometimes cohabitation at an
immature age and sometimes even before attaining puberty which had grave
physical effects upon the girls and the risk of premature childbirth. Since most groups
did not permit remarriage for women in the event of the death of the husband, it
meant early widowhood.

How can one explain the tremendous emphasis on pre-puberty marriage for girls in
India? One probable explanation is that legitimacy of the offspring was important.
There was no scope for births outside marriage. Hence protecting the virginity of
girls was of major concern to the parents. Since illegitimacy had no room in society,
the family was obsessed with fear of rape and pre-marital sexual relations. This fear
explains the difficulties and unhappiness that parents express in bringing up girls in
India. This obsession with protecting the girl child reached almost neurotic propor-
tions and parents were marrying off their daughters long before puberty, sometimes
when they were still babies. This infant marriage system meant, given low life
expectancy and other factors, infant widowhood.

The Child Marriage Restraint Act

Legislative action to prevent child marriage began with the passing of the Child
Marriage Restraint Act in 1929 fixing the minimum age of marriage for girls at 14.
In 1955, this was raised to 16. Only in 1978 was it raised further to 18 for women
and 21 for men. However, enforcement of legislation is not very easy, either by law
or custom. There practice of registration of marriage hardly exists.

Increasing Age at Marriage

Over the years, however, through both legislation and increased public awareness,
the practice of early marriage has declined considerably though it cannot be said to

2 The population census reports tor the period 1881 to 1931, contain interesting accounts of the
marriage pattern then obtaining in India. Early and universal marriage was enjoyed by the
members of Hindu religion and the practice was followed by other religious groups as well.
Around 1929, as many as 93 out of 1,000 girls between the ages of 5 and 10 years and 399
out of 1,000 girls between the ages of 10 and 15, were married. The situation was particularly
unfavourable to women who were exposed not only to the hazards of conception and delivery
at a tender age but also to early widowhood. Widow remarriage was looked down upon among
the Hindus. According to the 1921 census, there were 175 widows out of every 1,000 females;
of these 148 were below 15.
3 The All India Census Report of 1921 put it as follows: It implies cohabitation at an immature
age and sometimes even before puberty and practically always immediately on the first sign of
puberty resulting in grave physical effects upon the girl and in all the evils of premature child
birth. Infant marriage naturally involves infant widowhood, a feature of no significance where
remarriage is allowed, but of serious importance where it is not. In the case of castes in which
remarriage of widows is prohibited, the early death of the husband left the girl a widow for life
(Census of India, 1931). According to the Census Report of 1921, there were in that year, 612
Hindu widows who were less than one year old, 2024, who were under 3 years, 97,857 who
were under 10 years and 3,32,024 who were under 15 years of age.
138 Leela Gulati

have altogether disappeared. The age at marriage for girls has started moving up,
particularly since 1941 (Table 2). Still, as recently as in 1961, there were 4.4 million
married girls in the age-group 10-14. This number declined to 2.6 million in 1981.
However the number of married girls in the age of 15-19 years increased from 12
to 13 million in the same period. This meant that there were over 13 million married
women under the age of 18, the legal age at marriage (Pathak and Ram, 1993).
Table 2
Mean Age at Marriage 1901-1981

Source: S.N. Agarwala (1962); Census of India, 1981.

Age Differential between Marriage Partners

The age difference between marriage partners is an excellent indicator of the status
of women in any country. Marriage statistics show that in most countries of the world
men tend to be older than women. In the fifty-five countries examined, the average
gap was 3.8 years.

Table 2 shows that in India the average age difference between the partners has
remained quite large. One way in which men control the women in a marriage is by
being older to them. The Indian family by ensuring that husbands are considerably
older than wives, add the advantage of age to sex in marriage. A higher age of the
groom means more power, experience and a better economic status. The incidence
of older grooms marrying substantially younger brides is very high thereby creating
large age differences.

Fertility
Fertility within marriage is a very important concept for the Indian family. Childless
families are not accepted as complete or normal families. The unwritten rule was,
and is, that all marriages must result in children and preferably male children. The
blessing to a new couple is 'may you have hundred sons'! This way each family and
lineage tried to multiply its descendants and gave considerable value to the fertility
of its women. A large family was considered ideal to ensure that an optimum number
of children (especially sons) survive to adulthood and provide security for parents
in their old age.
 Women and Family in India — Continuity and Change 139

In 1970 only 9.4 per cent of the couples were effectively protected by fertility control
measures. In 1990 this proportion had reached to 43.3 percent (Table 3). In recent
years the fertility levels have been declining slowly. The total fertility rate has
declined from 4.7 in 1970 to 3.9 in 1989.
Table 3
Percentage of Couples Effectively Protected (CPR) by Birth Control
and Total Fertility Rates (TFR), India
Year CPR TFR

1970 9.4 4.7

1980 22.3 4.5
1985 32.1 4.4
1990 43.3 (1989)3.9

Source: 1. Department of Family Welfare, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government
of India, New Delhi, 1990.
2. Registrar Generals Sample Registration System Reports 1970-1990.

Mortality
In the past, Indian families had a large number of children and also experienced
high rates of mortality. Compared to other countries, both birth and death rates in
India are still quite high. But death rates have been declining in recent decades at
a pace faster than birth rates. Accordingly, life expectancy in India has been
increasing (Table 4).
Table 4
Expectation of Life at Birth, Crude Birth Rate (CBR), Crude Death Rate (CDR)
and Infant Mortality Rate (IMR), India, 1951-91

Source: Women in India: A Statistical Profile, 1988.

A major factor contributing to the mortality decline has been the control of epidemics
and better health care. At the same time it has been possible to reduce the incidence
of infant mortality significantly. At the beginning of the twentieth century, infant
deaths were around 200 per 1,000 live births, an alarmingly high rate by any
standard. Over successive decades, there has been a gradual and steady decline
in infant mortality so that by 1989, the rate has declined to 91 per 1,000 live births.
Though achieved over a period of 90 years, this cannot be considered insubstantial.
However, the rate reached in 1991 was quite high when compared to other parts of
the world.
140 Leela Gulati

Reproductive Span
In 1956, the interval between the birth of a woman's first and last child was 22 years
and she could expect to have less than two years to live after her last child left home.
Until recently, the strategy in the Indian family was to ensure that a child would
remain at home even after her last child left home (Young, 1980). Estimates done
for 1981 reveals that this duration of child bearing years has come down to 13 years.
The Indian woman spends a major part of her marital life in bearing and rearing
children.

Table 5
Marriage, Childbirth and Life Expectancy for Women in India, 1981

Since most Indian children are likely to survive into adulthood with the decrease in
the infant mortality rate, women no longer need to spend most of their reproductive
lives in producing children. If women are likely to spend less time in child bearing
and rearing and are likely to live longer, their lives must be reshaped and efforts
made to use their time more productively in order to aid development.

Average Household Size

The average household size in urban as well as in rural India has been on the rise
between 1951 and 1981 as can be seen from Table 6. However, the latest population
census for 1981 shows a decline in the size of the urban household while the size
of the rural household remains unchanged at the 1981 level of 5.6.

Besides the rural household size has been slightly higher compared to the urban
household size. Since there is an urban-rural differential in mean household size
one would expect that as urbanisation increases, there is likely to be a corresponding
decline in the household size of the total population.

Households by Size Categories

Since the 1951 census, the distribution of the households by size categories is
available. Medium and small households together constituted 76 per cent of the
households in 1951. But since 1971, there is an increase in the proportion of large
sized households (Table 7). They constituted 45 percent of the households, followed
by 30 per cent medium size, and only about one- fourth belonged to small house-
holds (Narayan and Narayan, 1989).
 Women and Family in India — Continuity and Change 141

Table 6
Changes in the Average Household size in India

Table 7
Percent Distribution of Households by Size Categories

Source : Census of India, 1961, 1971 and 1981.

Types of Households
Households can be divided on the basis of composition of its members. If we take
a liberal definition of the nuclear household (which includes nuclear pair, nuclear
and broken nuclear), 48.22 per cent of the households fall into this category.
Households accommodating other members besides nuclear and single member
households, amount to 46 per cent of the households. Thus it would appear that
Indian households are equally divided between nuclear families and extended
families. Only a small percentage of the total households are single member families.
The distribution of the household types are more or less the same in both urban and
rural areas (Table 8).

Changes in the Type of Family ,

Family in India exists in several forms, varying with caste, religion and ethnicity. A
widespread impression about the Indian family is that it is generally a joint family.
Most writers (usually British) of census reports in pre-independence India often
started analysing the size and composition of the Indian households with the
assumption that the joint family was universal and were surprised to find in the
course of their analysis of the data collected, that in reality, it was not so.

On the basis of Census of India, 1981, if lineally extended and collaterally extended
families are pooled together (which fit into the classical definition of the joint family),
one in five households can be considered a joint family.
142 Leela Gulati

Table 8
Percentage Distribution of Several Types of Households, 1981

Source : Census of India, 1991.

Female Heads of Households

The Indian Census defines a head of the household as basically a person on whom
falls the chief responsibility for the economic maintenance of the family.

Households become female headed for a variety of reasons. Female headedness

can be temporary or permanent and the implications for the family are quite different
in each case. While some households become female headed due to migration, the
reasons for a household becoming permanently female headed is largely death,
desertion or divorce of the male member of the household.

There is an increasing number of single-parent families and female headed house-

holds. The single-parent families are generally headed by women who may be
widows, divorced, separated, deserted or unmarried mothers. Female heads of
households who are not single-parents, may have a migrant husband or he may not
be contributing his income to the family. These women have the main earning
responsibility thrust upon them, for which they have neither training nor experience.
When they have young children to look after, they are further marginalised and fully
exploited in the unorganised sector. These families are generally the poorest of the
poor.

To gauge the extent of female headedness in Indian families is problematic. They

are likely to be underestimated due to biases in data collection . These biases stem
from a variety of factors, largely cultural, some definitional and others due to
instructions given to the enumerator. On the basis of estimates available from the

4 During the 1951 census, clear instructions were given as follows:-

The head of the household is a person on whom falls the chief responsibility for the maintenance
of the household. You need not, however, make any enquiry about this and you should treat as
the head any person who is actually acknowledged as such (Census of India, 1971). On the
basis of a study in Vizag district in Andhra Pradesh it was found that 90 per cent of female
 Women and Family in India — Continuity and Change 143

Indian decennial Census and the National Sample Survey the incidence of female
headedness is around 10 per cent. This proportion has been constant over the
decades from 1961 - 1 9 8 1 .
Even a 10 per cent incidence of female headedness in 1981 accounts for over 10
million such households. The implications of female headedness for a household
are serious, because the survival of the family depends on the woman's earnings.
Female headed households are more prone to poverty, given their lower control
over land resources and their greater dependency on wage income, their higher rate
of involuntary unemployment and lower levels of education and literacy of the
household heads (Agarwal, 1986).

The Family Life Cycle

A woman's status role and self image varies with her stage in the family life cycle.
The family life cycle is a succession of stages that the family passes through from
its formation to dissolution. Each demographic event, marriage, parenthood, migra-
tion and death marks a stage in the life cycle. The family life cycle covers the changes
in size, composition and functions of the family over its life time (Young, 1980). The
family is said to come into existence with the marriage of a couple and ceases to
exist with the death of the surviving spouse.

What path does the average Indian family take? What is its expected duration and
what is the duration of widowhood? The table presented below gives us an idea of
the time frame of events in a family.

The model life cycle presented in Table 9 are simply intended to act as examples
of the kind of changes occurring in the life cycles of women with modernisation.
Table 9
Family Life Cycle, India, 1971,1981

headed households were below the poverty line; a high proportion belonged to the scheduled
castes; and 57.5 per cent were dependent on agriculture and 47.7 per cent were dependent on
wage labour (see Parthasarathy, 1982 as referred to in Agarwal, 1986).
144 Leela Gulati

In 1951 when the life expectancy at birth for Indian women was only 32.5 years,
one-third of the women were likely to have lost their own mothers prior to the birth
of their first child and nearly half of the women probably had lost at least one of the
parents. With the expectation of life at birth going up to nearly 60 years, 90 per cent
of the women will survive to become grandmothers.

As can be seen from the table, expected duration of family life cycle is 55 years
between 1971 and 1981. There is a slight decline in the expected duration of
widowhood for both husband and wife. However, the expected duration of widow-
hood for the wife remains almost twice as large as that for the husband.

Migration Patterns
In most parts of India, marital migration of women constitutes a majority of all
migratory moves. Indian women move after marriage, to live with their husbands
and often with their husbands' families. Thus, women are more migratory than men.
However, study of such migration has been largely neglected because of several
reasons:

• women's migration is not considered very important

• it does not have much economic significance, and
• it is largely rural to rural migration and not rural to urban migration.

Information on the extent of internal as well as international migration is generally

available in Indian censuses only in the form of place of birth statistics. Only life time
migration can be assessed using the type of data. The number of life time migrants
was counted as 203.6 million at the 1981 census, constituting 30.6 percent of the
total population. The proportion was lower for the rural population (28.2 per cent)
than in the urban population. However the proportion of male migrants (17.8 per
cent) was considerably lower than that of female migrants (44.3 per cent). It was
true for both rural and urban areas. Furthermore women migrated in substantially
greater proportion to the neighbouring districts than men supporting the view that
female migration is mostly short distance migration (Premi, 1989). The migrant
families are forced to settle in the least served areas of towns and cities leading to
the proliferation of slums.

Some light on the causes of migration can be obtained on the basis of census data
which is presented in Table 10.
Table 10
Reasons for Migration, India 1981
 Women and Family in India — Continuity and Change 145

The reasons for migration differ for men and women and for rural and urban areas.
Employment related migration of males between rural areas is only 20 percent while
for urban areas it is 43 per cent. Employment related migration is negligible for
women, only about 1.28 per cent in rural areas and 4.24 per cent in urban areas.
Marriage and family related migration account for about 89 per cent for women in
rural areas and 79 per cent in urban areas.

Ageing and Widowhood

In recent years, ageing of family members has become a major problem for Indian
families. The incidence of female ageing is even more pronounced and problematic
for households to cope with. In 1990, around 7 per cent of the female population
was above the age of 60 years.
One major dimension of the ageing process is the incidence of widowhood among
women which is about four times higher than that of men. In the older age groups,
above sixty years, while only 14 per cent of the men were widowed, 56 per cent of
the women were widowed. The vast majority of elderly men and women in the family
do not have any independent means of support. Thus, ageing of the family members
will pose a difficult problem for the Indian family in the future (Table 11).
Table 11
Percentage Distribution of Population by Age, Sex and Marital Stauts, India, 1981

M = Married; W = Widowed; D/S = Divorced/Separated.

Source: Women in India, A Statistical Profile, 1988.

Violence Within the Indian Family

Though the myth of non-violence among Indians persists, a great deal of violence
exists within the Indian family. Since the family was considered sacred and above
sanctions, violence inflicted on women and children, particularly by heads of
households, namely husbands and other senior members was accepted. These
ideas contributed in keeping violence in the Indian family within the four walls of the
households and away from outside interference, both legal and social.

Incidence of female infanticide in parts of northern and western India, 5 burning of

widows on the husbands' funeral pyre, physical and psychological assault on new
and young female members of the household are kinds of violence which had no
legal protection for a long time.

5 Records from British India in the 19th century quoted that in some villages and tribes in the
North West not a single female child was found.
146 Leela Gulati

Female infanticide is still not uncommon in some small pockets of the country. In
recent years, new forms of violence have been added to the list. Most important
among these are dowry deaths and female foeticide. Violence committed by family
members to extract more money as dowry remain hidden and women hesitate to
speak about it. Incidence of dowry deaths are quite well known. Since 1978, female
foeticide, on the basis of tests done on the foetus, is used to abort the female child
in some parts of the country. The main reasons given for both these types of violence
are the escalation of dowry price and the need for a son to continue the family line.
Table 12 is based on information on the burning alive of women and crimes against
women in the state of Gujarat, a north western state with a population of 34 million.
Such crimes have increased almost three fold within a duration of four years.

Table 12
Cases of Burning Women Alive and Crimes Committed Against Women: Gujarat
(A north western state of India)

Year No. of Cases Average no. of women No. of Average/

of burning burnt alive per day Crimes day

1983 792 2.66 2341 6.68

1984 1418 3.88 4552 12.34
1985 1024 2.80 51.32 14.00
1986 2132 3.84 5299 14.00
1987 2220 6.00 7002 19.10

Source: Mulatti, 1992.

There is a fair amount of evidence indicating that consumption of alcohol and even
alcoholism among men is widely prevalent in poor rural families. Further the main
brunt of men's violence, especially under the influence of alcohol, falls on their wives
(see Horowitz and Kishwar, 1982; Jain, 1980; and Mies, 1983 as quoted in Agarwal,
1986).

Indian Rural Family

Rural and Urban Families

When we talk about the Indian family we are principally talking about rural families.
This is because the pace of urbanisation has been relatively slow. The earliest
estimate of urbanisation goes to the Census conducted by the British in 1871. The
urban population at this time was about 11 per cent. Until 1931 this trend was static
and it is only in recent years that there has been an acceleration in the process of
urbanisation. Between 1941 and 1991, the urban population has doubled itself. Even
going by the most recent census in 1991 only 26 per cent of the Indian family is
urban based. The overwhelming majority is still rural as can be seen from Table 13.

Although the urban population in India even now is only one quarter of the total
population, its recent increase has been sufficiently large and one cannot ignore its
increasing impact on the family in the near future.
 Women and Family in India — Continuity and Change 147

Table 13
Urban Population as a Percentage of Total Population, India, 1901-91

Source: Census of India, 1981 and 1991.

The Harshness of Life

One of the stark realities about the Indian family is that life is harsh, given the lack
of basic civic, educational, health and other infrastructural facilities, in both rural and
urban areas. Even the urban poor family is no better off as virtually 50 per cent of
the urban population lives in slums. With increasing urbanisation families are bound
to get fragmented either temporarily or permanently due to migration of working
family members. Traditional multi-generational families are likely to become nuclear.
Marital separations caused by out-migration are bound to affect relationships within
marriage and expose families to new kinds of stresses and strains.

An overwhelming majority of Indian families are dependent on agriculture for their

livelihood, we shall now try to understand their distribution between various catego-
ries.
Types of Rural Households
Rural households can be divided into three broad categories. These are:
• Self-employed households. These are further divided into:
(i) Self-employed in agricultural occupations (cultivating households).
(ii) Self-employed in non-agricultural occupations.
• Labour households. These are further classified as:
(i) Agricultural labour households.
(ii) Other labour households.
• Other rural labour households.
As can be seen from Table 14, self-employment households account for a little more
than half (52.42 per cent) of the total number of rural households. Of this type, three
quarters (40.72 per cent) are cultivating households. Those self-employed in non-
agricultural occupations account for only 11.70 per cent.
The second category is of labour households. These account for more than one-third
(37.27 per cent) of the rural households. In this category also, the distribution of
148 Leela Gulati

other labour households, other than agricultural labour households, is only 6.57 per
cent. These distributions emphasise the agricultural ambience of the average rural
Indian family.
Table 14
Types of Rural Households, All India (Rural), 1983

Source: Sarvekshana Vol 11, No. 4, April 1988.

Notes: Households types are defined by reference to the major source of livelihood for the
household in the year preceding the date of survey.

The Resource Base of the Rural Family

One of the most important assets of the rural Indian family is land. The incidence of
poverty among rural households is related to the extent of ownership of land. As a
result of the rapid growth of population, the pressure on land has been increasing.
Acceleration in the rate of population growth since 1951, negligible increase in
agriculture land and a very low shift in the work force from agriculture to non-
agriculture have led to increasing pressure on land (Dev, Parekh and Suryanarayana,
1991).

The broad evidence on land ownership in rural India up to the early 1980s shows
that the number of marginal and small owners had increased and large farms had
decreased. As can be seen from Table 15 in recent years (1982) 81 per cent of the
farms were small and marginal farms, with the proportion of the latter increasing
over the years.
 Women and Family in India — Continuity and Change 149

Table 15
Changes in the Ownership Structure of Land Holdings,
All India, 1961/62, 1971/72 and 1982

* Having upto one cent of land

Source: NSSO, 1990.
150 Leela Gulati

Common Property Resources

Common property resources are accessible to the whole rural community of a
village, to which no individual has exclusive property rights. Generally, these include
village pastures, community forests, waste lands, village ponds, tanks. Large scale
encroachment on these resources is taking place in all parts of the country. These
resources are getting increasingly privatised (with the connivance of the village
officials), with the result that access to resource-poor households to these common
properties is becoming restricted.

Distribution of Other Assets

Besides land, the most important rural assets are cattle buffaloes, other livestock,
agricultural machinery, non-farm business equipment and transport equipment.
Cattle and other farm animals account for 73 per cent of the total value of non-land
assets among rural households. Agricultural machinery and non-farm equipment
account for 28 per cent of the assets. The concentration ratio for cattle and other
farm animals is found to be considerably less than for land holdings or machinery
and equipment (Dev et al, 1991).

Productive Work: Women

In all rural households the primary responsibility for domestic work falls on the
women of the household. 58 per cent of a woman's time is spent in conventional
domestic activity. For the better off strata, that is, those of higher income groups of
rural cultivating households, house work absorbs practically all of women's work
time.

In rural agricultural households both men and women are also involved in the
production process, irrespective of the land owning class they belong to. The actual
activity they are involved in varies according to the category of land ownership. In
the cultivating households the role of men and women is supervisory; while men
take care of the supervision of wage labour, women take care of the food require-
ments of the hired help. In the other categories, the family members not only hire
themselves out, but also have to work on their own farm. The care of the cattle is
also divided between the sexes. Men and boys tend to oxen, while milch animals
and fowls are cared for by women. On top of the women's supportive role in the
men's work they are responsible for the running of their own homes, child rearing
and other domestic chores. For the middle income groups, women's role in agricul-
tural operations is important as unpaid family labour absorbing 50 per cent of their
work time. Unpaid family labour is minimal among marginal and landless wage
labour households.

Women who are found in wage work are drawn largely from agricultural labour
households which have virtually no access to land. The number of days women get
employment adds up to around four months in a year. The incidence of unemploy-
ment is also much higher among women compared to men. A female agricultural
labourer is relatively worse off both in terms of workdays and wage received. The
factors that determine the deployment of women workers depend on household
income, land ownership, agro-ecological endowment and the development of rural
infrastructure.
 Women and Family in India — Continuity and Change 151

Seasonality
That the incidence of poverty fluctuates by agricultural seasons has been noted in
several studies (Chambers et al, 1981). It is during the lean season that the family
is also most vulnerable to becoming indebted and bonded. In a sense this would
affect the household as a whole. However, it would tend to affect women more than
men because women's employment is much more seasonal in nature, due to the
relatively greater task specificity of women's work (female labour tends to be
concentrated in specific operations, for example, transplanting, weeding and har-
vesting and to some extent in threshing) while male labour is much more evenly
spread across operations. This would mean that female agricultural labourers would
have access to wage income only in certain times of the year and during the slack
period they would be exposed much more to the risk of undernourishment and
starvation than men (Agarwal, 1986 and Gulati, 1978). The seasonal dimension of
work also has adverse implications for pregnant and lactating women workers who
have been noted to lose weight during peak seasons, and for infants who are often
weaned during the busy periods (Palmer, 1981).

Schedule Caste Element

A substantial proportion of the agricultural labourers belong to the socially disad-
vantaged castes, often referred to in India as Scheduled Castes and Tribes. Though
the scheduled castes comprise only 15 per cent of the country's population, they
account for one-third of the agricultural labourers whether among men or women.
Female labour force participation is noticeably higher among scheduled caste
women and even more pronounced among scheduled tribe women.

Intra-Household Equity
Many studies on the Indian family have shown that the Indian household is one
where responsibilities are not allocated according to ability and resources and
according to need. Gender, age and relationship with the head of household, make
a great deal of difference in the allocation of resources. Social and economic
conditions for men and women, boys and girls are not the same within the Indian
family. On the basis of available evidence it would appear that women are at a
disadvantage with regard to food, medical services, leisure, education, or access to
skill formation. Low female life expectancy and excess of female infant and child
mortality reflect the discrimination in health care attention given to girls compared
to boys in the family.

These inequalities reflect themselves within the household in the distribution of work,
assets and resources between men and women and young and the old. In the
negotiation of the resource distribution within the household, two factors are found
to be important:

• the total resource position of the household, and

• the bargaining position of each individual member of the household.

Where the total resources available is limited, as in the case in poor households,
bargaining capacity of individual members becomes all the more important. Poverty
does not affect all members of the household uniformly (Agarwal, 1986). Women
lose out in the bargain relative to men, girls relative to boys. It is a much noted
152 Leela Gulati

phenomenon that women in most households eat last of all and least of all (Gulati,
1978). This is true especially of households below the poverty line.
Empowering Rural Women
Rural women can be empowered only if they have:

• access to ownership of land and property

• access to training and technology
• access to credit and market
• equality in wages and quantum of work
• access to safe water, sanitation and fuel
• improved domestic technology
• reliable and efficient family planning services which are client oriented and within
easy reach
• expansion of girls education, and retention in school
• autonomy over their reproductive life.

These needs can only be met by finding simple technologies for collecting of water
and fuel (two very basic necessities); labour saving agricultural equipments and thus
lessening their stress, allowing them more free time and subsequently improving
the quality of life for the entire family.

Conclusion

This paper brings to light a number of points regarding the Indian family. The concept
of the family continues to remain very deeply embedded in the Indian ethos. The
concept of marriage for all its members remains very central to the culture. While
there is a steady increase in the age at marriage of girls, age differentials between
marriage partners continue to be large. This has important implications for the
incidence of widowhood and the need for family support to widows. When the age
at marriage on the rise, there is a decline in fertility levels and in the reproductive
span of a woman's life. There is however a small change in the household size. Half
of the Indian families are nuclear and the proportion of single member households
and female headed households are on the increase. At the same time, the reported
incidence of violence, female foeticide and bride burning is on the increase.

Despite rapid urbanisation, the overwhelming majority of Indian families is still rural
based and 43 per cent of these live below the poverty line. Irrespective of whether
the family is rural or urban, life is harsh given the lack of basic infrastructural facilities
and increasing environmental degradation.

In terms of policy implications, the family still is the only social agency in India that
can provide support to its members in difficult situations. Whatever public or
government support can be provided in such situations, this major institution should
not be overlooked. Efforts to strengthen the family in all possible ways to provide
basic support services to all its members must be made.

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 Women and Family in India — Continuity and Change 153

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Appendix
Type of Households
1. Nuclear: A couple with or without unmarried children
2. Broken Nuclear: A fragment of a former nuclear family
Typical examples are the widow with unmarried children or the widower with unmarried children or
siblings — whether unmarried or widowed, separated or divorced — living together.
3. Supplemented Nuclear: A complete nuclear family, plus other unmarried divorced, or widowed
relation(s) who was not a member of the nuclear family.
4. Broken supplemented nuclear: A fragment of a former nuclear family plus other unmarried,
widowed, divorced or separated relations.
5. Joint or Extended: Two or more married couples between whom there is usually a link such as
parents and married son(s) or daughter(s) or brother-brother etc.
6. Lineally extended: An extended family where the relationship between the married couples would
be that of parents and married son(s) or married daughter(s).
7. Collaterally extended: An extended family where the relationship between the married couples
would be that of siblings such as brother-brother or sister-sister.
8. Lineal-cum-collateral: An extended family where three of more couples linked lineally and collater-
ally. Typically, parents and their two or more married sons plus the unmarried children of the three
or more couples.
9. Broken Extended: A former extended family where one or two couples are fragmented and are
represented by widowed, divorced, or separated person(s).

The Indian Journal of Social Work, Vol. LVI, No. 2 (April 1995)