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

and matro-nuclear families is well marked and significantly noticed. It is
these types that also show the participation of all the adult family
members in sericulture. The authority relations among the traditional
dyads within the family manifest a transition from the concentrated
authority, towards a distributive authority in the context of sericulture.
There is now a relaxation of authority in the relations between parents
and children, elder and younger siblings and between spouses. Those
who actively participate in sericulture, tend to assert their rights and
interests. Of the others, particularly those who have had a greater
authority over the former in a traditional setting, tend to act with
restraint. If there is an unsuccessful adjustment, in the distributive
system of authority relations, the family, especially, if it is a mixed
extended family, eventually collapses to form separate nuclear families.
In this transitional process of distributive authority relations, the
individuals themselves go through a process of self-realisation to achieve
self-confidence, self assertion and an increasing autonomy. The same
holds good, in the gender relations too.
Women's role in sericulture is determined by their relationship to
the main sericulturists and on the number of working adults in the
family. These, in turn, have a corresponding relationship in the level of
their participation and involvement in sericulture. There is also a
corresponding implication of the same in their status and position in the
family. Most of the adult women in sericulture families participate in
sericulture either actively or passively. When there are two women in
the household, older woman involves more in the household activity
while the younger one assumes an active role in sericulture. As the
household-work is considered always as that of women, the women,
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