Family in Contemporary India

In ‘Women In Indian Society’ , ​USHA THAKKAR and NEERA DESAI ​assert that it is
difficult to imagine a social system without the family - its activities of production, reproduction
and providing residence in an atmosphere of emotional and affectionate care cannot be fulfilled
by any other institution. Contextualising the family in the lives of women, they observe that the
family is the site where women experience security and care but it is also a place where women
suffer a number of tensions. The family is generally considered a private arena - yet in light of
the feminist assertion that ‘the personal is political’, social scientists have attempted to bring to
the forefront the litany of oppression women encounter within the realm of the family. Violence
against women also takes place in the most intimate of places -​the family. ​Though the family is
often a site of nurture and care, it can also be a place where male power is brutally expressed and
where women are socialised to accept their inferiority and vulnerability. It is the family that often
first teaches women to have negative, disempowering self-images and it is in the family that
young men first learn about female subordination. The enigmas of this institution has led
Amartya Sen to refer to it as a site where there is a coexistence of ‘consensus and conflict’.

The Household and Family

Household commonly understood and used by the Census for counting population
size is a residential unit in which members generally live, cook and dine together,
rear the young or/ care for the old. Family is considered more a relationship, an
emotional bond, a normative structure with rights and duties. Households may
include relatives from either side, paying guests, servants etc. In short, ​a
household is a residential unit, while a family is a relationship which has been
assigned a pattern of expected behaviour amongst the members both by
cultural tradition and law.​ ​Levi Strauss (1971)​ has described family and its
structures and functions in the following manner: ‘social groups that originate in
marriage, they consist of husband, wife, and children born of their union (although
is some family forms other relatives are included); they bind members with legal,
economic, and religious bonds as well as duties and privileges; and they provide a
network of sexual privileges and prohibitions, and varying degrees of love, respect,
and affection’​ . Pauline Koleda has distinguished between 11 family types in
India while AM Shah refers to the typology of 6-7 households in his research.
Women studies academics distinguish between the household as a site of gender
bias, and the family which is an agency for the socialisation of members to accept
and transmit the values and the ideology of the descent system.

Patterns of Descent:-
There are two major modes of descent systems in South Asia. In India, barring
some communities in the Southwest and Northeast, the patrilineal system is the
prevailing descent system.

Patrilineal and Matrilineal Practices:-

a) MATRILINY:-​ With respect to matriliny, one of the significant features is
that children of both sexes acquire permanent membership of the mother’s
descent group, which constitutes relatives connected through females
-ancestral property is devolved through the female line. If a woman dies
without giving any indication about the disposal of her self-acquired
property after her death, it goes to the youngest daughter. (Nongbri) A child
therefore derives the identity through mother. For eg, The ‘Taravad’ among
the Nayars in Kerala; the Kpoh (womb) among the Khasis of Meghalaya.
Within the Khasi family structure, women hold property and the youngest
daughter performs all the religious rites, yet the outside world is dominated
by men. The khasis have a saying : “War and Politics for men, property and
children for women”.

b) PATRILINY:-​ In a patrilineal society, both boys and girls take their social
identity from the father and are placed in his lineage-kutumb. But while a
son is a permanent member of this unit, a daughter is viewed as a transient
or not permanent member- and hence if she is given the right to inheritance,
the property will go to someone else’s family. A son is supposed to continue
the patriline; the daughter will not continue the line as her sons will carry on
their father’s line. After marriage, a daughter is supposed to visit the parental
home only for short periods. The cultural emphasis on the marriage of the
daughter and her near permanent departure is well entrenched. Folk songs
 and folklore are suffused with this message. ​Another significant feature of
the patrilineal society is the pattern of inheritance and resource
distribution. By and large, property is inherited by male heirs and
transmitted through them.

According to the traditional legal practice, daughters have only the right of
maintenance and to marriage, including the gifts and goods acquired at the time of
marriage (Streedhan), which are determined by the status of the family and the
caste to which the family belongs. Father-daughter, brother-sister relationships are
couched in emotional overtones of love, sacrifice and duty, but daughters have no
claim on family asserts.

A very crucial feature of patriliny is the pattern of residence. The ideal legitimised
household in India is a patrilineal, patrilocal joint family. In this context, a joint
family consists , ideally of three generations of male patrikins and their wives and
children. While the eldest male member constitutes the head of the family, on the
domestic front, especially with respect to household maintenance, is in the charge
of the eldest female member. It is her duty to look after the day-today domestic
needs of her family members and also control other young female members of the
family.

A newly married bride enters this set-up of patrilocality after marriage. This
transfer can often be traumatic as in her husband’s home, the bride is an outsider.
Leela Dube​, highlighting the feature of transitional membership of a daughter in
the patrilineal family comments thus: “Her living in the new home is in a way
conditional, depending on her ‘proper’ behaviour, efficiency in housework,
amicable relationships, service to elders, husband’s pleasure, the gifts she brings
and perhaps her earning. It is not uncommon to be driven out of the affinal home
for serious as well as trivial reasons. Though, all special ceremonies to incorporate
her into the family have occurred, her real incorporation occurs when she gives
birth to a son.” The normative expectations in this pattern emphasize for a wife to
be controlled, to be trained into the lifestyle of the husband's family. Regional
literature, folksongs, films, television serials are suffused with and often valorise
the themes of the tussle of power among the female members, and patriarchy uses
unequal power relations to suppress the young bride.

Thus,a woman’s place after marriage is in her husband’s house. The women’s
movement after the 70’s has taken up all the issues resulting from the patrilineal
pattern of household. Crucially, the norms and practices - concerning residence,
obedience, internalising the pattern of the husband’s family, severing all claims
from the paternal family- have led to the domestic violence which is perpetrated on
women. Dowry Harassment, stigma on separation and divorce, meagre
maintenance, tussle over custody of children and day-to-day violence, both
physical and mental are largely results of the patriarchal value structure.

Implications of the changing family structures for women: - Erosion of Matriliny

Social scientists have observed that the steely frame of the joint family which
dominates Indian psyche has started to dissipate from the 60’s onwards. Family
sociologists have further observed that the joint family pattern is often visible in
the upper castes, in business communities and in the peasant proprietor class in
rural areas. In poorer communities and among tribals, generally the nuclear pattern
prevails. However, the urban middle class, especially the educated and professional
classes prefer the nuclear family pattern. Besides, in the rapidly changing
economy, transformed martial relations and the growth of individualism has led to
the development of unconventional families. These changes have also impacted
traditional patrilineal and matrilineal descent structures as well.

For instance, the major change in the matriliny system has emerged with the
introduction of legislation which legitimises devolution of property through the
male line. The independent income accruing to men has been, it is contended, due
to changes in land relations.

Sardamoni ​has observed that “It was men from the upper strata in the matrilineal
communities who began to demand reforms and laws. Behind these demands was
the keenness to establish their power in the family.” Developments outside the
taravad, in the society at large not merely helped them but were able to manipulate
the changes in their favour. She adds, “Male domination or superiority did not
mean the same to all men, but it meant to all of them a sense of new authority and
control over women.” Similarly, among the Khasis, a major change was brought
about when the Succession Act of Meghalaya was enacted, giving any Khasi and
Jaintia of sound mind and legal age the right to dispose of his self-acquired
property by will. (Nongbri)

Dowry is replacing inheritance rights as a mode of transfer of property to women.

While women do inherit property among matrilineal groups, many of them have to
sell land because of migration due to marriage. Varghese in a study in 1988 found
out that 35 out of his sample of 54 Nambudiri women sold land between 1955 and
1980 because they were moving into the husband‟s home. Among the matrilineal
Izhavas, land was sold and the cash equivalent given to girls as a form of dowry
over which she may not have much control. Mother-daughter inheritance is
becoming rare as women do not have land to pass on to their daughters. Over the
past half century, dowry has become quite common among matrilineal groups like
Tiyas, Mappilas and Izhavas (Osella and Osella, 2000

It has been contended that modernisation forces favour patriliny. Men have
benefitted from modern education, salaried employment and the spirit of
individualism. This has changed gender relations. Whereas macro changes in
matrilineal societies have affected women’s rights in an adverse manner, the
changes in patriliny have not empowered women.

The first tremor experienced by the family was the introduction of industrialisation
and modernisation initiated during colonial rule. The macro changes in western
societies led to the nuclearisation of the family, which meant that the household
constituted the husband, wife and unmarried children.

The values of individualism and personal betterment encouraged the advancement

of personal growth rather than subordination of the self and giving priority to the
needs other kin members. For this, an individual’s career, advance mobility were
considered important. A nuclear family is believed to be a fit institution in the
changed socio-economic conditions. The Indian scholars, however noted that
though family size might become smaller, it does not inevitably indicate the
fragmentation of family. Even if due for various reasons, the residence does
become separate, joint obligations and responsibilities and filial duties still persist.

Mala Shankardas ​mentions that as the Indian economy becomes liberalised, the
thrust of the industrial policy on modernisation and on reforming the role of
financial institutions makes the domestic industrial market competitive but also
nudging business enterprises to adopt a separation between management and
ownership.Quite a few studies have examined the separation of ownership and
management, leading to changes in structure of relationships.

With respect of the impact of these changes on women, it has been contended that
a nuclear family is a boon to women and younger members in the family but on the
other hand the basic norms of patriarchy still persist, with the husband as the
decision-maker, or the elder family relations of the husband’s family.

Gender Relations in the Family - Patterns of Consumption: Intra Household

Divisions, Entitlements and Bargaining:-

Women studies academics have highlighted the fact that family is not a
homogeneous group where all members occupy equal positions and derive equal
benefits in terms of resources, training and opportunities and entitlements. The
socialisation of members leads women to accept their secondary role in the family.
Leela Dube’s​ remarks are pertinent in this context :- she said that gender
differences are culturally produced, are almost invariably interpreted as being
rooted in biology, ‘as part of the natural order of things.’ However, gender roles
are conceived, enacted, and learnt within a complex of relationships. Apart from
the growing prevalence of foeticide and the declining sex ratio, they are socialised
into a future role- that of a wife.
Within the bargaining approach, intra-household interaction is characterised as
containing elements of both cooperation and conflict. Household members
cooperate so far as cooperative arrangements make each of them better-off than
non-cooperation. Many outcomes are possible in relation to who does what, who
gets what goods and services and how each member is treated. For a long time,
economists were content with Becker’s ‘unitary’ model, which considers the
household as one unit and the household head as a benevolent patriarch who
considers the preferences of all members before making allocation decisions. But
recent studies have disproved this model by showing that there are substantial
differences in the welfare levels of the individuals of the same household which is
caused by the difference in amount of power an individual wields within the
household. Discrimination is also present in education and health care received by
daughters and sons of the famil.y Agarwal (1997) points out that gendered social
norms form a kind of pre-condition for household bargaining power. Thus the
effectiveness of education and employment in empowering women will also be
dependent on the social norms.

The well-known economist ​Amartya Sen​, while writing on gender entitlement

has observed “Traditional models of price theory and market behaviour are silent
on the family.”In his studies of famine, poverty and low sex ratio in India, he has
found that there exists greater morbidity fr women vis-a-vis men - “while the level
of health tends to improve with income, the differential of men vis-avis women
seems to be maintained. Sen also refers to a bias in nutrition and healthcare against
females in North India. In fact, gendered attitudes are visible in almost all phases
of life.
He introduces the concept of entitlement - these are defined as “the ideas, norms,
and customs that govern resource allocation in a particular group or society. Thus,
even a cursory observation informs that there is gender difference in education,
health service, inheritance of property and also access to information.

Devaki Jain and Nirmala Banerjee in their article entitled ‘The Tyranny of
the Household’ ​offer a sharp critique on the existing patterns of inequality in the
household. They contend that in the allocation of social and physical powers,
women are ranked lower in the hierarchy - the household thus conceals
gender-based inequalities across caste, class, race and religion. They also detail the
intra-household subordination faced by women, concluding that while the much
studied sociological family is described as the microcosm of the world, the
economic household contains in it characteristics of prevalent patriarchy - namely
unequal distribution of economic power, benefits related to ownership, capital,
access, responsibility, fictional autonomy and gender. The less the resources in a
family, the greater the inequality within it.

In ​Bina Agarwal’s studies, ​ she contends that even with the welfare state, the
inherent inequality of households remains the same as the state does not wish to
intervene in the realm of the private. Elizabeth Wilson, while explaining the
relationship between welfare state and family argues that “the state is not just a set
of services, it is also a set of ideas about society, about family” and at the core of
these ideas is the idea of the woman as a centrally important linchpin of the family.
The family and the household, adds Agarwal are thus not undifferentiated units
governed by altruism (as posited by economic theory) but institutions whose
stability hinges upon maintenance of unequal resource positions between men and
women. If a family disintegrates, the woman is often alleged to be the primary
agents responsible for creating family conflicts among the men who are supposedly
devoted to each other.

Women and Work - Dual Burden

A very marked change is in the middle class and upper class families is the entry of
women into the world of work - what has been noted often in these examinations
by scholars is that women impose upon themselves limitations of career
enhancement as they feel that they cannot travel or transfer because of the family.
Studies have contended that despite more women joining the workforce, there
has hardly been any significant change in the family work roles.

Property Rights:-
Available literature on gender and property points to the complex meanings of
property. The significance of wealth and resources can only be revealed through an
understanding of concepts of personal things and valuables, within specific cultural
systems. Moors calls this „The situated nature of property‟. Property should not be
understood through narrow connotations of capitalism and commodity but should
include ideas of kinship and ideologies of personhood. For instance, control over
the products of labour, wages or reproduction (children), marriage or honour for
women can also be considered as property in a broad framework.
Bina Agarwal has detailed the strife felt by rural women who have used folksongs
to decry their estrangement to their childhood homes - homes to which their
brothers who customarily inherit the ancestral land have automatic access. Gail
Omvedt too has described how in Maharashtra, women divorced/deserted by their
husbands can be found working as agricultural labourers on their brother’s land.

In Bodhgaya (Bihar) in 1979, landless labourer women, agitating alongside their

husbands for ownership rights to land they had sown for years, protested the
distribution of titles only to men, noting “If these men who are today landless beat
up their wives so badly, merely using the power derived from being men, then
tomorrow when they get the land will they not become relatively even more
powerful?”.
Land defines social status and political power in the village, and it structures
relationships both within and outside of the household. Yet, for most women,
effective rights in land remain elusive, even as their marital and kin support erodes
and female-headed households multiply. In legal terms, women have struggled for
and won extensive rights to inherit and control land in much of South Asia, but in
practice most stand disinherited.

The idea of women having independent property rights (including rights in land)
was accepted by most south asian countries in laws governing the inheritance of
personal property in the 1950’s. But such acceptance remained confined to
inheritance laws that affect private land, the issue of women’s land rights was not
taken up till 1980’s. ​Srimati Basu asserts that property issues are prime sites of
cultural discord, a place where the conflict between “modern” legal guidelines
and customary notions of family and entitlement was laid bare. Narrow
provisions for women’s inheritance are seldom utilized, and Hindu women are
often not given a share in natal family property, or appear to refuse their own
inheritances.

Evolution of Property Rights ​in India

Property rights of women in India are based on religious personal law and differ
for women across different religious groups. ​The Hindu Succession Act, 1956
states that - In the case of a Hindu male dying intestate i.e. without leaving a will),
all his separate or self-acquired property, in the first instance, devolves equally
upon his sons, daughters, widow and mother. If there is a predeceased son, his
children and widow get the share he would have received if alive; the children of a
predeceased daughter get her share likewise; and the children and widow of a
predeceased son of a predeceased son similarly inherit a share. All these are the
primary or Class 1 heirs under the Act. In the case of a Hindu woman dying
intestate (without leaving a will), if she has children or grandchildren from
predeceased children, all her property in the first instance devolves equally upon
her sons, daughters, children of predeceased children, and husband. The Act gives
all female heirs absolute ownership and full testamentary rights (right to will away)
over all property.
However, The Act, as originally enacted, did not recognize women as co-parceners
Daughters had a right only in the father‟s self- acquired property. Second, if a male
co-parcener were to renounce his rights in his co-parcenary property, his sons
would retain their independent entitlements to the joint estate. But daughters, the
widow and other Class I female heirs who had a right in such property through
male co-parcener, would stand disinherited from such property. Third, if a man
willed all his property (including his separate or self-acquired property) to a
stranger, his Class I female heirs would stand totally disinherited. But sons,
because of their direct claims as co-parceners, would still be entitled to their share
in the joint estate. Fourth, unlike sons, married daughters (even if facing marital
harassment) had no residence rights in the ancestral home. Fifth, it did not
recognize the children of a predeceased daughter among class I heirs, while
recognizing the children of a predeceased son.

In lieu of these lacunae, this act was amended in 2005, with the following changes
being added:
● First, the 2005 Act makes all daughters, including married ones,
co-parceners in joint family property with the same birthrights as sons to
shares and to seek partition.
 ● Second, it gives all daughters (including those married) the same rights as
sons to reside in or seek partition of the parental dwelling house.
● Third, the legislation removes a discriminatory section which barred certain
widows from inheriting the deceased‟s property, if they had remarried

These amendments can empower women both economically and socially, and
have far reaching benefits for the family and society. Rights in coparcenary
property and the dwelling house will also provide social protection to women
facing spousal violence or marital breakdown, by giving them a potential shelter.

However certain anomalies still remain. The power of unrestricted testation under
Hindu Law would, in theory, affect sons and daughters equally, but given the
social bias in favour of sons it works to daughter‟s disadvantage. Testamentary
power must be limited to protect female heirs. On divorce, a woman thus gets no
property benefit from any direct or indirect economic contribution she makes
during her marriage toward increasing her husband‟s wealth. Therefore, what we
need is equal rights for both spouses in the ownership and control of property
acquired by either spouse after marriage, and for an equal division of such property
on divorce.
Basu has also asserted that gender in Hindu property law lies within a very narrow
compass.

With respect to Muslim Women, Hanafi school of law (governing the rights of
most Indian Muslims barring the Shia’s) recognizes three categories of heirs:
i) Koranic heirs who are mostly female
ii) Agnatic heirs who are all male; and
iii) Distant kindred blood relatives who are neither agnatic nor koranic.
They are connected to the deceased through a female link like daughter‟s children,
son‟s daughter‟s child, paternal and maternal aunts and their children.

Daughter (an only child) receives a half share of the deceased parent’s property. If
there are two or more daughters and no sons they jointly get 2/3rd share (to be
divided equally among them). Presence of a son (an agnatic heir) converts a
daughter’s right from an agnatic heir to an agnatic co-sharer which means she gets
half of what the son gets. Wife gets 1/8th or 1/4th of the husband’s property
depending on whether or not there is a child or son’s descendants. The husband
gets 1/4th of his deceased wife‟s property if there is a child or son’s descendants
and half share if there are no descendants. Muslim women therefore have rights in
ancestral immovable property although unequal to men. Unlike under Hindu
personal law where a father can will away all his property to his son, depriving his
daughter of a share, under Muslim personal law women enjoy protection from
testation. No more than one third of the property can be willed to a stranger after
obtaining the consent of all the heirs.

With respect to Christian women’s property rights, under the Indian Succession
Act of 1925, if a man dies intestate leaving lineal descendants, his wife gets one
third of his estate, while sons and daughters get equal shares in the rest. If there are
no lineal descendants, but there are other kindred who are eligible to inherit, the
wife would be entitled to half the estate; and in the absence of both lineal
descendants and kindred, she would be entitled to the whole property. There are no
restrictions on testation.

Srimati Basu ​indicates how property transmission reproduces hegemonic space.

The role of the law needs to be considered from diverse angles: the functions of the
cultural imaginary created through state legislation, the cultural mechanisms that
inhibit legal reform and the ambivalence of turning to the law for women’s
empowerment. The reinvention of systems of kinship, processes of class formation
in the post colonial nation state and the articulation of gender hierarchies with class
and kinship are also crucial components . Basu also investigates the agency behind
women’s refusal to claim natal property - whether these are random or misfigured
assertions of agency influenced by cultural prescriptions or actual choice. These
narrow provisions continue to be hailed by judges and legislators as triumphs of
postcolonial jurisprudence, and tokens of the superiority of “reformed” Hindu law
over the other communities. They were perceived as radical experiments at the
time they were drafted. Thakur Das contended that “the purity of family life, the
great ideal of chastity and the great ideal of Indian womanhood.” were at stake in
this example of “equality run mad” according to him. Thus, the post-Independence
India, property issues and gendered division of property - have centrally marked
the conflict between perpetuation of older systems of privilege and the
establishment of a “modern” new nation founded on the principles of individual
rights and liberties.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS: SIGNIFICANCE OF PROPERTY: CONFLICTING

PERSPECTIVES
For women, how important is property as a resource? There are conflicting
perspectives stemming from empirical observations.
​Srimati Basu (2001)​ writes that within the capitalist world system the
significance of property cannot be overemphasized. In her study on middle class
and lower class women in Delhi, women underlined the significance of property as
an insurance for old age, as a safeguard against coercion of husbands and as a
symbol of strength and respect.

​ ail Omvedt (1990)​ underlines the link between violence against women and
G
their lack of property and resources. Violence and the threat of violence keeps
women confined to the unorganized sector as agricultural labourers, wage workers
and sellers of forest produce and make them economically weak and this economic
vulnerability, in turn, incapacitates them to resist structures of violence.

Govind Kelkar​ similarly points out that witch hunts in India aimed at
marginalizing women and excluding them from land rights and other production
processes. With diversification of livelihoods, men have moved into non-farm
activities while women because of their low skills (lower literacy levels,
restrictions on mobility and child care responsibility, household care) leave women
behind to tend the land. In such a context of feminization of agriculture, lack of
property rights puts women in a disadvantageous position. They are unable to
access credit, and other resources (Rao, 2005).
Other empirical studies, however, do not lend support to the idea of property as
fundamentally empowering. For instance in Srimati Basu‟s (2001) study among
urban middle class women in Delhi, respondents‟ apprehensions of being the
haklenewali ‘(Taker of her Rights)’​, being regarded as greedy and grasping and
of losing the love and affection of near and dear ones often made them decline
natal property in favour of marital and affinal resources.

For women to acquire property independently is difficult, considering the unequal

wage structure in the labour market and low rates of work force participation in the
formal sector.

Lipton ​(1985) found the links between ownership of land, particularly poor quality
land and poverty reduction to be tenuous. ​Heyer​ (1989) found landless labour
women in Tamil Nadu preferring to invest in the education of their children, or in
social networks, rather than land, as this could, in fact, restrict their mobility in
search of work. However, land is still imp - Apart from being a productive
resource, land is also a social resource. Saradamoni (1985), in her study of land
relations in Kerala, points out that woman take pride in land as a family resource
rather than as a group or individual resource

SEXUALITY, HETERONORMATIVITY AND THE FAMILY: CONTROL OF

FEMALE SEXUALITY

Marriage is the institutional mechanism through which sexual activity and

procreation are regulated. While sexuality may seem to be a highly personal,
private matter concerning the individual, anthropologists and sociologists maintain
that sexual behaviour is socially and culturally learnt. It is also highly variable, as
the ethnographic record shows. In many pre-modern societies, sexuality is tightly
controlled and rule-bound, due to the requirements of inheritance and the
establishment of paternity
Nivedita Menon​ in ‘SEEING LIKE A FEMINIST’ has detailed the anxiety within
heteronormative families around maintaining and protecting the institution of
marriage. The question of gender-appropriate behaviour is thus inextricably linked
to legitimate procreative sexuality. That is, sexuality is strictly policed to ensure
the purity and continuation of crucial identities, such as caste, race and religion.
Non-heterosexual desire threatens the continuation of these identities since it is not
biologically directly procreative; and if non-heterosexual people have children by
other means, such as technological interventions or adoption, then the purity
ofthese identities is under threat. Hence, often violence is unleashed on those who
fall in love with people of the wrong caste or religion.

The institution that manages this policing of sexuality is the patriarchal

heterosexual family. The family as it exists is the core that sustains the social order.
This social order correctly recognize sthat non-heterosexual desire and defiance of
gendered appearance are, in fact, signals of a refusal to participate in the business
of reproducing society with all its given identities intact.

GENDERED DISCOURSES ON MOTHERHOOD AND CARING

There is a powerful ‘discourse of motherhood’ across cultures and through history
which places great cultural value on motherhood. In many societies including
India, becoming a mother is considered to be a key ‘act’ in a woman’s life and the
fulfillment of her womanly destiny. Becoming the mother of a son gives a young
woman a better status in the marital home, however, if she gives birth to several
daughters in succession, she is reviled. Barrenness is seen as the worst curse that
can befall a woman; in many Indian languages she is referred to as a “barren field”
Motherhood is associated with the values of selflessness, sacrifice, placing the
desires of the child and family above one’s own desires and needs and finding
fulfillment in this ‘natural’ function.

Motherhood becomes the culturally sanctioned path to her elevation in status,

especially if she produces a male heir. Sudhir Kakar writes in detail about the
intense physical, emotional and psychological bonding between mother and infant
and the powerful cultural and religious imagery about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ mothers.
While the tight dyadic bond he describes has been challenged by other authors, his
insights on the immense cultural weight accorded to motherhood in Hindu India
are valuable. The studies of authors like Stanley Kurtz (1992) and Susan Seymour
(1999) demonstrate that within the partilineal Indian family, ‘multiplecare giving’
is the norm, wherein the child is tended to by various other women in the
household (grandmother, sisters, unmarried aunts, cousins etc) rather than just the
mother.

Dalit and Queer Feminist Critique