ABSTRACT

With the opening up of the Indian economy in 1991, several macro level changes have occurred in Indian society. An attempt is made in this chapter to explore a few diverse and synergic experiences encountered by families in contemporary India. Earlier studies and comparative statistical figures clarify that families and households are analytically different. The dissimilarity between the Indian and western nuclear families is explained through the value attributed to familism and jointness in Indian families. Significance of the cognate family in social sciences is then explored through kinship structures and the family as a unit of social reproduction. The chapter concludes with the governmentality of the family over time. Issues of parenting, morality, modernity, family size, and heteronormative sexuality become national and policy priorities. Familial affection in middle class and elite modern families, including meanings of premarital relations and of money portray newer dimensions. It ends with pointers to the latest challenges for the study of the family.