Family: A Fading Idea?
I am fortunate to have the happy experience of living in a joint family for the first three decades of my life, a nuclear family for next three, and currently living with our lovely daughter-in-law and son. Given my enriching family-life experience, I am quite stunned to see the social challenge surrounding us: of 80+ aged seniors living alone, working couples stressfully juggling work and care for their young children, married couples evaluating the affordability of having a baby, not unlike buying a consumer durable, or youth serious evaluating the desirability of marriage. What has changed in the last fifty years that has made joint families in India give way to nuclear families, and now the recent trend of a growing number of individuals wanting to live alone?
Have economic and commercial considerations replaced filial and moral drivers in our society? Is this a reflection of Western values invading the Indian society? Will it be a matter of time before the American challenge of more than a quarter of families being a single-parent households, and 40% of the first marriages ending in divorce echo in Indian? I got some clue to answering these questions in a thought-provoking book by Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind, Why People are Divided by Politics and Religion. This book answers much more of the current social challenges including why our societies are now virtually split along political and religious beliefs.
Unlike the popular belief, the author shows that there is no one set of ethics that is applicable to the entire human race. The ethical-belief systems change as we move from the western to the eastern hemisphere. At a broad level, the ethic of autonomy in the west shifts to the ethic of community and divinity in the east. He coins an interest acronym WEIRD for Western Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic societies where the ethic of autonomy prevails. Even in the eastern hemisphere, the WEIRD sections of the society are increasingly adopting the ethic of autonomy, just as the blue-collared, working class and the rural population in the Western societies retains much of the ethic of community and divinity.
The ethic of autonomy prioritizes empowering the individual with freedom and right to self-expression. It encourages individuals to define their own paths—in career, relationships, or belief systems. The family too promotes responsibility and accountability in children with results measured using the economic lens of income and wealth. An undesirable byproduct of this is fragmentation of relationships, where family becomes a loose-knit, need-driven association of individuals that come together when convenient and/or preplanned.
The ethic of community, by contrast emphasizes relationships and interdependence. It sees the family as an anchor where each member is a contributing member. The system is based on trust, ensuring care for elders, guiding children in their choices, and respecting social traditions. When community ethic is blindly enforced, it stifles personal growth, promotes injustice, especially for women and members seeking individuality by limiting their freedom.
The desirable code of ethic is neither of the two. While it is easy to prescribe the ideal ethical code, it is difficult to practice it. What is needed is a mindful blend of autonomy embedded in the ethic of community. Children growing up with a sense of autonomy that incorporates both empathy and respect for tradition as essential values. While at the same time realizing without the economic means to survive, there is no life to enrich.
A sharp blade by itself, or a handle without a blade is impractical, and does not make a useful knife, Likewise, everything in this universe needs balance: autonomy for the individual in their prime, with filial care at the beginning and the end is what makes life integrated and meaningful. Do you agree this blended ethics will solve the current challenges, or do you have a different take?
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