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Patriarchal Family: Causes of the Decay of Patriarchal Family!
After the Renaissance and Reformation came a new age of science and democracy which began to undermine the foundations of the patriarchal family. On the one hand, there were economic factors involving industrialism, urbanism and mobility which broke down the self-sufficiency of the patriarchal family.
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On the other hand, there were cultural factors, the growth of democratic ideals and the decline of religious orthodoxy, which were in less harmony with the prerogatives and attitudes of the patriarchal family. These factors combined to challenge what Reuben-Hill called the ‘formalistic-patriarchal’ type of family and to usher in what he referred to as the ‘person-centred-democratic’ type.
Let us consider those factors separately:
(i) Economic factors:
The Industrial Revolution substituted the power machine for the manual tool. As new techniques of production advanced they shelved the old family of its economic functions. New factories with heavy machines were set up which took both the work and the workers out of the family.
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Now cloth was produced not on the family handloom but in the textile mill. Thousands of workers were required to work in the factory that was drawn out of home. Not only males but females also began to go to the factory for work. The work of women became specialized like that of men and instead of being busy with the multifarious tasks of the family they went to workshops and factories for work.
Women and daughters became as good earning members of the household as the men and sons. This earning newer of women made them feel independent of their dependence upon males, in 1952 the number of women gainfully employed was about 26.8 per cent of the total working population in U. S. A. which has now increased manifold. Of these more than one-third was married women. Thus the economic and technological changes affected profoundly the character of the patriarchal family. “The family” as MacIver says, “changed from a production to consumption unit.”
The technological discovery affected the patriarchal family in other ways too. It not only drew out larger numbers of women into workshops and substituted readymade commodities for home made commodities but also introduced labour saving devices in the performance of family tasks. Various appliances were used in cooking, baking, washing, and rearing up of the children who saved much energy and time of the housewife. She could now engage herself more on essential functions.
An inevitable result of industrialisation has been the growth of urbanism. Urbanism has materially affected not merely the size of the home but also the essentials of the family life. It has substituted legal controls for informal controls and brought the family into competition with specialized agencies pursuing particular interests in a rational manner and entailing no long- run obligations. Social mobility has cut still deeper into the family organization.
(ii) Cultural factors:
The emergence of democratic institutions in political field undermined the authoritarian mores of feudalism. The democratic state curbed the domination of the patriarch over the family members and set its own courts to determine issues over which he at one time had been supreme.
The right to vote, which was given to a man by virtue of his being a property holder, became gradually, an individual right. The religious functions of the family diminished. The view that family was a divine creation and that the patriarch was the symbol of God in the family became less accepted. The choice of the mate was no longer made by parents but by the individual himself.
Woman attained a new political and legal status and a high degree of economic independence. ‘The husband”, wrote Earnest R. Mowrer, “is no longer the head of the household in many families inspite of the fact that he still provides the family name…. In fact he is lucky if his children look upon him other than as a meddlesome outsider.” Marriage is no longer a devotion of woman to man but contracting to live together on equal terms.
All this wrought the death knell of the patriarchal family and brought into existence the modern family which is very much different in structure and function from the traditional family. Presenting a contrast between patriarchal family and modern family, E. W. Burgess and H. J. Locke write: “The patriarchal family is authoritarian and autocratic with power vested in the head of the family and with the subordination of his wife, sons, and their wives and children and his unmarried daughter to his authority. The modern family is democratic based on equality between husband and wife, with consensus in making decision and with increasing participation by children as they grow older.
Marriage is arranged by parents in the patriarchal family with emphasis upon social and economic status, and upon adjustment of the son-in-law or daughter-in-law to the family group. In the modern family, marriage is in the hand of young people and selection on the basis of romance, affection and personality adjustment to each other.
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Compliance with duty and the following of tradition are guiding principles of the patriarchal family. The achievement of personal happiness and desire for innovation are watch words of the modern family. The chief historical functions of the family i.e., economic, educational, recreational, health, productive and religious are found in the fullest development in the extended patriarchal family. These historic functions have departed from the modern family.”