SERICUL TURE AND THE PROCESS OF CHANGE - Institute for ...

over women and of the old over the yOWlg had become accepted as a
nonn and in the process even become institutionalised. The cohesiveness
of the family had been given supreme importance.
However, in today's changing circumstances, there has been a
tendency for alteration in authority relations due to many factors, which,
in tum, result in structural modifications. One of the major factors that
operate in the loosening of such relations is the exposure of the
individual members to the external world. The other major factor could
be the increasing possibility of exercising or asserting one's control over
income. Operation of an enterprise like sericulture, requires wider
linkages and involves wider exposure. This is because of its dependency
on market forces, for procurement of layings and marketing of cocoons.
Apart from these, the interactional opportunities with government
officials are high in sericulture. It also has the potentiality of providing
greater access to income for individuals.
Authority necessarily involves two essential categories of people,
namely, the dominant and the dominated, the powerful and the
powerless. Authority, control, power and autonomy are all related
concepts. Lipman-Blumen (1994: 110) defines power as 'a set of
processes whereby one party (be it an individual, group, institution, or
state) can gain and maintain the capacity to improve its will repeatedly
upon another, despite any opposition, by its potential to contribute or
withhold cntlcaf resources from the central task, as well as by offering
or withholding rewards, or by threatening or invoking punishment. Here,
the emphasis has been laid on the processes and on the critical
resources. In Lipman-Blumen's own words agam, 'the basic
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