Impact of Post feminism on Indian Families A Critical Study of Works of Manju Kapur

Abstract

Family is a basic, organized and vital unit of the larger social systems. Families in a large and newlineculturally diverse country like India have plurality of forms that vary with class, traditions and newlineindividual choices. The family is the first line of defense especially for children and a major newlinefactor in their survival, health, education, development and protection. It is also a major source newlineof nurturance, emotional bonding and socialization and a link between continuity and change. It newlinehas the major potential to provide stability and support when there are problems. Indian society newlinebelieves a lot in family integrity, loyalty and unity. It also performs important economic, social, newlineeducational, recreational and religious functions. On the one hand family appears stable, newlineenduring all universal cultural forms but on the other hand, each family is endangered by diverse newlinethreats of disintegration. The process of modernization also led to major changes in the family in newlineIndia during in the nineteenth century. The traditional family structures yielded to the pressures newlineof modernization and it began to show signs of collapse. The exposure to the west with liberal newlinephilosophy and individualistic thinking brought a sea-change in the family system. Whatever the newlinecase may be, joint family as a larger unit of kinship slowly disintegrated yielding place to newlinesmaller, nuclear families. This development may be considered the first important moment in the newlinetransformation of the family in India. newlineThe disintegration of the family unit can also be attributed to the growth of feminism in India. It newlineis widely acknowledged that family constitutes the dominant milieu and constructs the primary newlineidentity of women. It is the environment into which they are born and within which they grow newlineup. It defines women s identity by conferring upon them the name of the father/husband, by newlineinscribing them within its own class, caste and religion, defined identity and by prescribing the newlinesocial roles that they will play in familial terms as daughter, wife, and mother.