ABSTRACT
The family has remained insulated from public policy for long on the assumption that it is a homogeneous unit where all members enjoy the same social privilege, experience the same standard of living and share the same life chances and are, therefore, social equals.1 However, studies suggest that men and women within
1 The concept of family carries different meanings and implies different connotations depending upon the perspective one looks through. There has been an intense debate in sociological and anthropological literature as to what the standard defi nition of family should be. It is suggested that there are various ways of looking at the term and concept of family. For one thing, marriage does not necessarily mean constitution of family, nor divorce mean dissolution of family, nor is household synonymous with family (see Levin and Trost 1992). However, given the lack of any standard defi nition of the concept of family, for the present purpose family is taken as a social group consisting of at least one spousal unit.
