MARRIAGE AND FAMILY IN INDIA: Trends and Emerging Challenges

Marriage and family are the two most basic and resilient institutions of society which are undergoing change to accommodate the changing needs and demands of the society. Even though marriage and family have been studied extensively by sociologists, social anthropologists and demographers, not much has been studied from the family demography perspective. The socio-economic, demographic and technological changes have altered the reproductive behaviour and family formation, hence family demography is an important perspective to analyse family change.
Keeping all these issues in the forefront, the present anthology tries to answer some important questions. What kind of changes are taking place in the institution of marriage? How important is marriage for the new generations and what are their views concerning various aspects of marriage? What are the ideologies and practices concerning child bearing and family formation? Lastly, what kind of challenges are emerging in contemporary times due to the socio-demographic changes? Here, an effort has been made to understand the changes in the process of family formation in India. Though some changes in marriage practices can be noticed yet, unlike the western societies, the significance of marriage for family formation has not undergone change in India. In future, both marriage and family will experience fresh challenges and will undergo further transformation and change. It remains to be seen as to how ‘gender and sexual revolutions’ will affect family and marriage in the diverse Indian situation.
Contents
1. Introduction / Jasmeet Sandhu
2. Changing Marital Practices in India / J.P. Singh
3. Trends in Age at Marriage / B.S. Nagi
4. Young People / Surendra K. Gupta
5. Changing Marriage Values / Deep Punia, R.K. Punia and M.L. Sharma
6. The Ideology of Small Family / H.D. Lakshminarayana
7. Effect of Age at Marriage on Fertility / V. Kalyani
8. Fertility Preferences and Use of Contraceptive Methods in Himachal Pradesh / Savita Thakur
9. Son Preference and Reproductive Behaviour in Rural Punjab / Prabhjot Malhi and Sukhvinder Singh
10. Poverty and Population / Arun Kumar Sharma
11. Technology for Human Reproduction and Construction of Gender / Jasmeet Sandhu and Anuradha
12. Changing Demographic Structure and its Implications for Old Age Support / P.K.B. Nayar
13. Problems of the Aged in Unorganized Sector / Amarjit Mahajan
14. Problems and Needs of Aged Widows / Sobha B. Nayar
15. Changing Parental Exchange System / Anupam Bahri
16. Single-Parent Families and Public Policy / Ranjay Vardhan