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

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widely used at present in researches is too simplistic and less
comprehensive. The two general terms that are used in the socioanthropological
parleys are the nuclear family and joint or extended
family. The nuclear family generally refers to a couple with or without
wunarried children. The "joint family' and 'extended family' are mostly
used as synonyms in Sociology and Social Anthropology respectively
(Morab 1992:2). The joint family includes two or more nuclear units of
related married couples. These are too general types to be precise and
comprehensive in representing the score of family compositions that are
prevalent today, especially in the transitional process of its structure.
Some attempts have been made to classify the extended family further,
into Vertically extended family, Horizontally extended family and
Mixed extended family. These were adopted in the 'People of India
Project' undertaken by the Anthropological Swvey of India (Singh
1991). However, even these are not exhaustive enough to include the
maximum variations of family structures. For instance, it is not
uncommon to come across families consisting of nuclear units with an
addition of a single parent who is either separated or widowed.
As there are no appropriate concepts to refer to such type of
families, a conceptual formulation is attempted here, to achieve brevity
and clarity in comprehending the differential family structures. The
effort here is to make use of the available concepts and use additional
attributes for further classification. Thus, a family of couples alone
without children is conventionally referred to as 'conjugal' family. At a
higher level, a unit, with one of the parents, separated or widowed,
residing with the wunarried children is referred to as a 'broken family'.
If the parent is the mother, then it is termed in the new conceptual
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