Types of family in India

• Pauline M. Kolenda (1968) - 13 types of family in India

• 1. Single-person household.

• 2. Sub-nuclear family: a fragment of a formerly complete nuclear

family such as a widow with her unmarried children, or two
unmarried siblings living together.
• 3. Supplemented sub-nuclear family: a sub-nuclear
family plus some unmarried, widowed or divorced
relative(s), not part of the former nuclear family.
• For e.g., a widow with, her unmarried children, plus
her widowed mother-in-law.

• 4. Nuclear family: parents and their unmarried

children.
• 5. Supplemented nuclear family: a nuclear family plus
some unmarried, widowed or divorced relative.
• For e.g., parents and unmarried children, plus the
father’s unmarried brother or widowed mother.
• 6. Lineal joint family: parents with their unmarried children
plus a married son with his wife and unmarried children.
• 7. Supplemented lineal joint family: a lineal joint family plus
some unmarried, widowed or divorced relative who is not a
part of either of the component nuclear families such as the
older man’s unmarried brother or widowed sister.
• 8. Collateral joint family: two or more married brothers,
their wives, and unmarried children.
• 9. Supplemented collateral joint family: two married
brothers, their wives, and unmarried children, plus some
other unmarried, widowed or divorced relative not a part of
either of the component nuclear families such as the
brothers’ widowed mother.
• 10. Lineal-collateral joint family: married brothers, their
wives, and unmarried children, plus both parents and any of
the latter's unmarried children.
• 11. Supplemented lineal-collateral joint family: a lineal-
collateral joint family supplemented by some unmarried,
widowed, or divorced relative not a member of the
component nuclear families.
• 12. Polygynous: a man with two wives plus unmarried children.
• (Other polygynous types may be devised such as:
• [a] supplemented polygynous - in which some other unmarried,
widowed, or divorced relative resides with the polygynous family,
or
• [b] sub-polygynous - in which the two wives both widowed live
with their unmarried children.)
• 13. Other: any household that cannot be categorized in the types
above such as a grandmother living with her grandson, or a father-in-
law living with his widowed daughter-in-law.
Compound families

• According to “Notes and Queries on Anthropology (1951)”,

Compound families could further divided into the following ‘3’
types.

• 1) Polygynous family:
• It exists, if a man has more than one wife. And, this group consists, a
man with two or more wives and their children.
• 2) Compound polygynous family:
• Like a polygynous type, it is composed of a man with two or more
wives and their children, but along with this, the children of one of his
wife to her first husband, if she was already married and who is
separated from him.

• 3) Compound Nuclear Families: Here “ a group formed by the

remarriage of a widower or widow having children by a former
marriage”.