A Flawed System
Posted by: inbavalli on: September 20, 2008
The Great Indian Joint Family, in my opinion, is a much-hyped, overrated institution. Whenever I read a piece extolling its virtues and singing its praise, I know that the author either has never lived in a joint family him/herself, or is glossing over facts. To an outsider it looks good to see a home bustling with grandparents, grandkids and assorted uncles, aunts and other random relatives. However, the system offers its individual constituents zero privacy and little freedom, financial or otherwise.
I’m not claiming that a nuclear family is perfect. My only contention is that the joint family is a flawed system, so please let’s not eulogize it. Deep rivalry, financial siphoning, incest, child abuse, bullying, harassment…these are the darker, and never talked about, faces of the joint family system.
Today, for every grandparent who brings up grandkids with Ramayana tales, there are half a dozen who, knowingly or unknowingly, inculcate in the kids TV watching habits. Grandparents who teach girls as young as 10 that they are ‘dirty’ during periods and must follow seclusion. Who tell little boys that they never ought to touch the broomstick and therefore sweeping is a woman’s job.
I don’t know how it is elsewhere, but in my part of the world, the elders alternately snigger and frown when a young couple close their bedroom door at any time of the day other than night. So much for privacy. While the joint family might mete out a reasonable deal to a man (he gets fed well even if his wife is down with typhoid, and is not expected to do any domestic chore whatsoever), the woman does get a very raw deal, particularly in a patriarchy.
Yes, the women do get to share the household chores but then the chores are several-fold greater than in a nuclear family. Also, as in most workplaces, the lazy ones don’t do much work while the hardworking ones get rewarded with more work. Who hasn’t heard of lazy fathers who let their wealthy fathers and brothers take care of their children’s education and marriage. Or of mothers who were so busy cooking and washing clothes that they hardly got to see their kids grow up.
Something is inherently wrong in a system that doesn’t allow a woman to decide what she cooks, when she cuddles up to her husband and how she shapes up her kids.
Indians tend to think that the joint family makes better financial sense. It does only if you are earning a pittance and find it convenient to dig into another couple’s income to improve your own standard of life. It’s certainly not nice to earn well but not enjoy its fruits just because you need to share it with a dozen other relatives.
The joint family has also contributed to the vast prevalence of consanguineous marriages in the South. After all, while an ‘outside’ girl might rebel, a closely related girl – often the groom’s niece – would more willingly settle down in a large family.
It may seem that the joint family is the best bet for old people. Believe me, it isn’t. If parents realize early that their kids will leave their nest and they will be spending their old age alone, they will take better care of their health early on. They will also practice better fiscal discipline during their prime and ensure that they have a reasonably good pension plan. One may see this in parents who have only daughters – they not only save for their daughters’ wedding but also for life after that, as against parents who have sons and imagine they will be fed and taken care of in their old age.
I know dozens of people who are burdened in their old age to take care of babies while they would rather stretch their legs and relax with a book. It’s one thing to offer to care for your children’s babies because you want to, and another to feel obliged to change diapers and feed the babies because you are dependent on their parents for food and medicines.
When I see my old aunt spend all the day in a flat with no sit-outs, endlessly cooking and caretaking while her son, DIL and grandkids snap at her, I can’t help but think she would be better off in an old-age home where she would have less chores to handle and some peers to interact with.
Yes, it is good for kids to be with their grandparents and vice-versa, but it doesn’t have to necessarily be under one roof. A healthy distance would be a lot fairer on all parties.
21 Responses to "A Flawed System"
A gr8 blog, I must say but I dont agree with you completely…
Each system has its own pros and cons. But it ultimately depends on the people who live in it. I know a small joint family of 3 brothers with their mother and father living on a 750sq ft flat in our area. They live happily and enjoy each festival and occasion to the fullest. Each person has a role defined in the house. All men and women are given equal importance. Touchwood, looking at them, I something feel that the joint family system is the best system especially for caring babies or one of the family members is sick. The eldest of the family has clearly set rules as to who should be doing what in the house. Even the men in the house spend time assisting the female in buying vegetables and other smaller activities.
While in another flat in the same area lives a couple who were formally a member of joint family but living Nuclear now. They are not happy either. They create all sorts of problems to their neighbours. When I look at them, I feel, its good that they spilt up with their family… and I am now waiting for them to move out of our locality, but the rising real estate prices makes discourages me.
Coming back to the point, the most important factor deciding the success of a system is not the system itself, but the people who the part of it. You cant blame the system completely.
But Vinod, when it takes 8-10 people to make a system, how do we expect everybody to have the right attitude? One bad apple can ruin the cart. And this ’setting of rules’ by the eldest is what I precisely object to. A bride enters the family, spends the next 30 years following rules that often don’t suit her. If she dies at 50, she’d have spent her lifetime toeing someone else’s line. Certainly not my cup of tea.
That Ekta Kapoor joint family in your neighbourhood ‘looks’ happy. But how do you know if each member is truly happy?
And thanks for saying nice things about my blog 
Hello Inba,
Very well written! Yes, every word that you’ve put down is very very true.The joint family system may be good for kids (during their growing up years, may be 5-10, for the kids of these days..), but definitely it doesnt do any good for adults or the older generation. If the older generation can live under the same roof with the younger generation by providing them with privancy, financial independance and making it a point not to be a nuisance in their lives by poking their nose on every small detail, it can work out. The reason for most of the MIL-DIL fights is because of staying under the same roof. The MIL’s who stay with their sons somehow take it for granted that the DIL HAS to serve her and her daughters..Their expectation from the DIL is always at the higher end. I somehow feel that a cordial (to a decent level) can be maintained if the In-laws stay away from their sons.
*Applause*
[...] கிழிய பெருமையடிக்கிறவங்கள்லாம் ஒரு எட்டு எட்டிப் பார்த்துட்டு வாங்க. எனக்கென்னவோ பொதுவா [...]
Bang on!! yep, Joint families are fun only for kids – between 1-9..
Its a big talavali for others!!!
Very well written, inba!
Thalavali indeed 
hmm.. going by the positive experiences in my own family house (which does not exist anymore), i think it all depends on the intelligence of the architect.. a house with sufficient common spaces and sufficient private spaces and sufficient exits all positioned thoughtfully may not make for such a bad living experience..
Sufficient common spaces, sufficient private spaces, sufficient exits all positioned thoughtfully — are we talking about the palace of the Chettinad royal family? 
And Sangu, the next time you meet your mother ask her if she was genuinely happy in a joint family, and let me know what she said.
Came here from Shyam’s blog — and so glad I did! Nice to read something you agree with entirely and totally!
Thank you Brinda, and welcome to my blog
Hi Inba..your blog did take me to my earlier primetime, coming from a joint family myself.Ideally not practical, the by products of such family offshoots simplify life, when out of it, for personal or professional reasons.Lot of unlearning to do and now that I am an autonomous thinker (Taking select decisions in partnership with my husband ‘alone’, while Iam on my own for others though generally) without having to feel obliged about explaining myself or the activities I do, the disproportionate system though has encouraged tolerance in me-towards old people and their need to be wanted like most of us. Good fences and good people fending for themselves make good neighbours. History need not repeat itself as coexistence is a costly call today and quantity need not make quality.Thank you though for making me aware of this through the flawed system.
Aarthi, you have a valid point about learning tolerance via this system. But the price we pay for those lessons is disproportionately high.
Blogeswari is so right… joint families are fun only for kids. Once you grow up a little and begin to figure out the little rivalries and petty jealousies and things – kinda takes the shine off the fun!
Very true. Also, kids living in the same neighbourhood have as much fun. So why bother with cumbersome joint families…
Agree with every word Inba.
“Aarthi, you have a valid point about learning tolerance via this system. But the price we pay for those lessons is disproportionately high. ” – Bullseye!
Thank u
Ok, the prev comment was me. YYs details were in the history and I clicked submit without checking.
very well written mam. I happened to read this by chance. I am 54 and I have suffered in this Joint family system – mentally and financially too. I was the one with the highest income in the family but had to look upto MIL before spending on something for my ownself.
and i dont agree its fun for kids too. the daughters kids are always given preferences while i had to leave my son in a creche when i went to work, the daughter’s kids enjoyed everything in the house .
The only advantage i hv gained is that i have learnt How not to be a MIL and I am happy I am doing it perfectly in “my” family
“How not to be a MIL”. That’s my biggest life lesson as well
Dose living with parents considered as joint family?
No if you are unmarried. Yes if married. At least that’s my definition.
Unbelievably true! My husband has a completely romantic view of the joint family system too – him having never lived in one . My mum had a very difficult time with it, not having her own space, chided even for thinking that she needed her own space, not able to cook as she pleased, take a day off from cooking if she chose to, cleaning, washing, running errands, busy all the time! Everyone needs their own space to be their own individual – and women, particularly, have a hard time co-existing with other women – I say women, because many of the men were not stuck together with their differing personalities for the whole day, they got to go outside to work and do their own thing. I
Yes, Lakshmi. My idea of a truly liberated woman is one who can make a meal of thayir saadham and pickle when she’s feeling low. If the husband cooks the rice, even better
Hear! Hear! Excellently written. While I agree with all your points on why the system is flawed, it has one redeeming factor though. At least in my case. When we were little, we only ate what everyone else did. There were no special concessions. Either we ate it or went hungry. So I’m extremely unfussy when it comes to food. And having moved around a bit, I cannot emphasize enough what an advantage that is.
The husband, by contrast, has lived in a nuclear family all his life and is hyper-finicky when it comes to food. His mother used to make a different dish for each of her two children. Consequently, he suffers every time he has to travel. Or cannot get his fix of thayir sadam. Once when he was in Italy, he survived for 4 days eating just some cake crumbs. He wouldn’t even touch the local food.
Other than that, I wouldn’t wish joint family system on anyone.
Ammani, I must confess, like another blogger did, that I feel as overwhelmed as a Pepsi Uma caller who gets to talk to her. Welcome
One of my pet peeves is mothers food-spoiling their kids. While joint family kids do tend to be less fussy as you point out, there’s no reason why a mother in a nuclear family cannot be strict on this count. My mother was a tyrant at this and so am I today. My kids eat almost every vegetable while their father eats just a handful.
Amen.
did read this post when you posted, but didn’t come back to read all comments.
As you might have checked that I linked you in Kathambamaalai, and I agree with you every word.
but, two things.
1. it may be fun for the child, but not for the mother of the child watching her child being spoiled or raised in a way may not be how she wanted.
2. as inba has replied to ammani, it is upto the mother or the main carer to raise the child unfussy. Avni is less fussy eater who is being raised by me and just me. My niece is a total fussy eater, who is being raised in a joint family system. Another baby here is a total fussy eater as proudly claimed by the parents. No joint family.
I did wonder how Kathambamaalai got it. Thank you!
Inba, like another blogger did,,
I couldn’t find what you were referring.
The link is: http://chokkathangam.wordpress.com/
I saw the link and the blog, but which post/comment are you referring? may be that person has posted few more after what you read and that is why I could not find what you were referring?
Sorry, I should have given you the specific link: http://chokkathangam.wordpress.com/2008/08/12/the-mother-of-all-chennai-hate-blogs/
I am more of a proponent of a happy compromise. By compromise I mean the following:
- In this mobile world people are growing apart more and more. It is very difficult for the kids to grasp the concept of “taking care of old parents”. In most cases as parents get older they do not want to burden their kids. They have their social life and enjoy it. But what gives them immense confidence that their son/daughter/son in law/daughter in law is close by to help them should it be needed.
- similarly, kids are losing the concept of maternal uncle, paternal uncle, maternal aunt, paternal aunt, cousins from both side (and remember all these are different relationships with completely different nuances), etc.
So for the happy compromise -
ideally if the parents can live a walking distance and then gradually move in once they become incapable of completely taking care of themselves then you have the ideal situation (children get the *amazing* love and affection of grandparents, adults get their freedom grand parents get the “right” level of support as they gradually become older.
ideally if the extended family lives in walking distance or in the nearby suburbs then you get the joy and pleasure of getting together on festive occasions. You also build bonds and a support system in case of something catastrophic were to happen.
Assumptions: that families are relatively well off. the standard jealousies and rivalries are not going to go away but that will be their even without the concept of extended families only replace it with keeping up with the Jones’s.
I totally, totally agree with you. I come from a joint family background myself and I can confidently say it SUCKS big time (although I did enjoy the time spent with grandparents). There’s so much exploitation and politics. Taught me a lot of lessons about (the ugly side of) human nature. Blood comes from my eyes when I think about how much my parents have suffered.
1 | Shobana
September 20, 2008 at 7:30 pm
I love you for writing this one! I concur with all ur thots and I was kind of shocked reading abt the dirty secrets that don’t come out. Everyone, especially men think of joint family systems as romantic, but having heard of some catfights that went on, when my parents lived in one such family (they later moved out), I have bitter feelings about it.
God bless your parents, they made a sound decision when it was required.