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

Family and Marriage: The size of the family generally stands
out to be between four and five. This only reflects the predominance of
nuclear families and the increasing tendency to restrict the family size to
fit into the emerging socialisation of the controlled family norm. Once
the girls attain puberty, the parents feel insecure and would like their
daughters, married at the earliest opportunity available to them. So, the
age at marriage for the girls is not later than twenty with a few
exceptions. However, the marriage for the boys is usually delayed. The
age-difference is well between five to ten years. Apart from the
physiological advantages, the vast age difference between the couples is
one of the reasons why there are more widows than widowers in all the
study villages. The widowed in each of the villages account for about six
to seven per cent of the total population. The widows constitute around
10 to 11 per cent of the total female population while the widowers
constitute only about three per cent of the total male population.
Education: The villages under the purview of the present study
show an average literacy ratio of about 55 to 65 per cent. Among them,
the males and females show a deviation of about ten to fifteen per cent
above and below the average, respectively. There is, however, a marked
difference in the level of educational attainment in different villages.
E N Pura shows a higher level of educational attainment with
more than 25 higher secondary educated and an almost equal number of
graduates. The K K Pura boasts of a good number of high school and
higher secondary educated cases. Interestingly, many of these higher
educated youths have found sericulture as a productive and 'gentler'
enterprise as compared to agriculture and pursue it without much
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