Types of Family

By marriage

Monogamous, one husband and one wife. Polygynous, one husband with several wives. Polyandrous, one wife with several husbands. These follow the forms in [Forms of Marriage].

By residence

Where the couple lives after marriage. The terms are easily confused and the examiner knows it.

• Patrilocal or virilocal: the couple lives with or near the husband's parents. The general Indian pattern.
• Matrilocal or uxorilocal: with or near the wife's parents.
• Neolocal: in a new residence of their own, neither with his family nor with hers. The characteristic urban pattern.
• Avunculocal: with the husband's mother's brother, found in some matrilineal societies.
• Bilocal or ambilocal: with either set of parents, by choice or in turn.
• Matrifocal: a household in which the mother is the centre and the effective head, whether or not a husband is present.

Why residence matters more than it looks

Residence decides who exercises daily authority over a young couple, who is available to care for children, and who is present to intervene in a quarrel. A change from patrilocal to neolocal residence transfers power inside the marriage and removes the elders who used to settle disputes, and it is one of the sharpest ways urbanisation changes the family. The consequence for law is direct: disputes once resolved within a household now arrive in courts, which is why the growth of neolocal residence and the growth of matrimonial litigation are connected.

By descent

Through which line kinship, membership and inheritance are traced.

• Patrilineal: descent traced through the father. The general Indian pattern.
• Matrilineal: descent traced through the mother. In India, the Nairs of Kerala and the Khasi and Garo of Meghalaya are the standard examples.
• Bilateral or bilineal: traced through both.

Do not confuse descent with residence and neither with authority. They vary independently, and the standing example is worth having: among the Khasi, descent and inheritance run through the mother, residence is matrilocal, and yet formal authority in the household is typically exercised by the mother's brother rather than by the mother. Matrilineal is not matriarchal, and that sentence answers a question examiners are fond of.

By authority

• Patriarchal: authority in the eldest male.
• Matriarchal: authority in the eldest female. Genuine matriarchy in this strict sense is disputed, as [Theories of the Origin of the Family] explains.
• Egalitarian or democratic: authority shared between the spouses. Increasingly the urban pattern, and driven above all by women's earning.

By the nature of the bond

Family of orientation: the family a person is born into, containing their parents and siblings. Family of procreation: the family a person creates by marriage, containing their spouse and children. Every married person belongs to both, and much of the tension in a marriage comes from competing claims of the two.

Conjugal family: organised around the married couple, whose bond is primary. Consanguineous family: organised around blood relatives, in which the tie between siblings or between parent and child is primary and the spouse is an addition. The traditional Indian joint family is consanguineous in this sense, which explains an outcome outsiders find puzzling: in a conflict between a man's mother and his wife, a consanguineous family expects the blood tie to prevail.

The classification summarised by basis

A worked example

Vikram and Sneha live in a two-room flat in Thane with their daughter. Vikram's parents live in Nashik. The Thane flat was bought with money from the sale of ancestral land held in Vikram's father's name, and the family's decisions about that land are still taken by his father. Sneha is employed and the couple's income is theirs alone.

A complete answer names the basis for each label. By structure, this household is nuclear, though the family remains extended in function. By marriage, monogamous. By residence, neolocal, which is why the daily authority of the elders has gone. By descent, patrilineal. By authority, egalitarian within the household and patriarchal as regards the ancestral property, which is the interesting split. By bond, this is Vikram's and Sneha's family of procreation and their daughter's family of orientation, and it is conjugal in daily life and consanguineous in respect of the land.

The example makes the chapter's real point. A single family is rarely one type. It is one type on each of six bases at once, and the bases can point in different directions, which is exactly where the strain in a modern Indian family sits.

Quick revision

1. Six bases: structure, marriage, residence, descent, authority, nature of the bond. Always name the basis.
2. Nuclear: husband, wife, unmarried children, independent household. Joint: the five tests, common residence, kitchen, property, worship and head.
3. Extended, and the modern Indian pattern of residentially nuclear, functionally joint.
4. Residence: patrilocal, matrilocal, neolocal, avunculocal, bilocal, matrifocal. Neolocal residence removes the elders who used to settle disputes.
5. Descent: patrilineal, matrilineal, bilateral. Nairs, Khasi and Garo are the Indian matrilineal examples.
6. Matrilineal is not matriarchal: among the Khasi, descent runs through the mother and authority through the mother's brother.
7. Authority: patriarchal, matriarchal (disputed), egalitarian.
8. Family of orientation (born into) and of procreation (created); conjugal (couple primary) and consanguineous (blood tie primary).

Test yourself

1. On what six bases is the family classified? Name the types under each. Structure or size: nuclear, joint, extended. Marriage: monogamous, polygynous, polyandrous. Residence: patrilocal, matrilocal, neolocal, avunculocal, bilocal, matrifocal. Descent: patrilineal, matrilineal, bilateral. Authority: patriarchal, matriarchal, egalitarian. Nature of the bond: families of orientation and of procreation, and conjugal and consanguineous families.

2. Give the tests of a joint family and say why they are no longer easy to apply. Common residence, a common kitchen, common property, common worship, and a common head whose authority is recognised. They are difficult to apply now because they come apart: a family may hold property jointly and worship together while its members live in three cities and cook separately, so a household may be joint on some tests and nuclear on others, which is why the distinction between jointness by residence and jointness by property became necessary.

3. Distinguish matrilineal from matriarchal, with an Indian example. Matrilineal describes descent, membership and inheritance traced through the mother; matriarchal describes authority vested in women. They are independent. Among the Khasi of Meghalaya descent and inheritance run through the mother and residence is matrilocal, yet formal authority in the household is typically exercised by the mother's brother, so the society is matrilineal without being matriarchal.

4. Why does a change from patrilocal to neolocal residence matter? Because residence decides who exercises daily authority over a couple, who is available to care for children, and who is present to intervene in disputes. Neolocal residence transfers power within the marriage to the spouses themselves and removes the elders who formerly settled quarrels internally, which is one reason matrimonial disputes that were once absorbed within the household now reach the courts.

5. Distinguish conjugal from consanguineous families and give a consequence. A conjugal family is organised around the married couple, whose bond is primary and to whom other relatives are secondary. A consanguineous family is organised around blood relatives, the tie between siblings or between parent and child being primary and the spouse an addition. The traditional Indian joint family is consanguineous, which is why in a conflict between a man's mother and his wife such a family expects the blood tie to prevail, an outcome that appears inexplicable if the family is assumed to be conjugal.