Elucidate changing structure of family and marriage in modern society. (2005)
Marriage and family are interlocked institutions. Marriage sets the rules for forming a family, and the family sets the context in which marriages are arranged and sustained. In modern society both are moving, in William J. Goode’s terms, from ascription and collective control towards choice and individual rights, so a change in one reshapes the other.
Changing structure of marriage
- Mate selection. Kin-arranged alliances are giving way to self-chosen or “arranged-love” marriages. Ravinder Kaur and Rajni Palriwala (Marrying in South Asia, 2014) show matrimonial websites, migration and dowry economies reshaping choice while caste endogamy largely holds.
- Age at marriage. Marriage is getting later everywhere. In India, the share of women aged 20–24 married before 18 fell from 47.4% (NFHS-3) to 20.1% (NFHS-6, 2023–24).
- Nature of the bond. K. M. Kapadia (Marriage and Family in India, 1955) described Hindu marriage as an indissoluble sacrament. The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 made it dissoluble, moving it towards a contract based on companionship.
- Stability. Divorce is becoming easier and less stigmatised. In Shilpa Sailesh v. Varun Sreenivasan (2023), the Supreme Court held that it may dissolve marriages on irretrievable breakdown under Article 142 and waive the six-month waiting period for divorce by mutual consent.
- Form and scope. Lifelong monogamy increasingly becomes serial monogamy. Andrew Cherlin (2004) calls this the deinstitutionalisation of marriage, with cohabitation as prelude or alternative. Many Western states recognise same-sex marriage, while Supriyo v. Union of India (2023) held that there is no fundamental right to marry and left the question to Parliament.
- Internal relations. Anthony Giddens’ pure relationship replaces duty with mutual satisfaction and negotiated equality.
Changing structure of family
- Composition. Joint and extended families are giving way to nuclear, single-person, lone-parent and reconstituted households.
- Authority and roles. Patriarchal seniority is yielding to more democratic decision-making. Michael Young and Peter Willmott traced the rise of the symmetrical family, though women still carry the second shift (Arlie Hochschild).
- Kin ties. I. P. Desai’s “structurally nuclear but functionally joint” family shows kin obligation outliving co-residence.
- Plurality. Judith Stacey’s postmodern family has no single template.
How the two changes interlock
- Later and self-chosen marriage produces smaller, conjugal, neolocal families.
- Divorce and remarriage create lone-parent and step-families. Kinship becomes “divorce-extended” as ex-spouses stay linked through their children.
- Cohabitation and single parenthood by choice separate family formation from marriage. Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim argue that the child, not the spouse, becomes the irrevocable bond.
- The influence also runs the other way. Where joint families and caste councils remain strong, they keep marriage arranged and endogamous even as households nuclearise.
Limits of change
Robert Chester’s neo-conventional family reminds us that most people still marry and raise children in couple households. In India, marriage remains near-universal, and honour-based violence against self-chosen unions shows how strongly the old structure is still defended.
Conclusion
The structures of marriage and family are changing together: from sacrament to contract, from lineage to couple, from a single form to many. The pace is set by gender relations, law and economy, and in India by caste. Modern society has not abandoned these institutions; it has made them matters of choice.