Feminists Perspectives: According to general study, family is a social institution based on cooperation, harmony, common interests and equality.
They have taken man as the important unit of family and ignored women’s experiences. In order to draw attention to wants the situation of women in the domestic sphere, feminist criticised the institution of family.
Liberal Feminism
Liberal feminism argues that women and men must be differentiated not on the basis of their biological imperatives but due to the process of sex-role socialization.
The sex-role socialization taught women to become housewives primarily, thus the women could not realize their full potential and remain independent of their husbands This is the main cause of their subordinate status in front of men.
Liberal feminists demand equal opportunity for women in all spheres including the equal opportunity for jobs which can be brought by legislation and social reforms.
Betty Friedan, Ann Oakly, Susan Okin Moller are among many liberal feminists who favored the respectable position of women in the family.
Socialist Feminism
Marxist feminists argue that women’s subordination is related to the ownership of property. Marxist feminism explores how gender ideologies of femininity and masculinity structure production in capitalism.
Socialist feminists contest such ideas and state the ways in which even the working-class male benefits from the family.
Socialist feminists argued for the social wage to bridge the divide between paid productive work and unpaid reproductive labor. The social wage sought to give material value to reproductive labor.
Radical Feminism
Radical feminists give stress on sexual exploitation rather than economic exploitation. They relate women’s oppression to their reproductive role that is performed by them within the family.
According to them, women should reject their biological reproductive role and take the help of technology to overthrow male domination.
Kate Millet, Shulamith Firestone is among the important radical feminist. According to Kate, the status of both child and mother is chiefly dependent upon the social and economic status of the male.
Firestone in her book The Dialectic of Sex (1972) wrote that the material basis for the inequality between men and women is produced within the biological family.
Feminist Studies of Family
Most the feminists concentrated their work around the family institution in terms of the structure of marriage.
unequal distribution of resources between men and women and gender division of labour. Women are often discriminated in access to health, education, food and clothing.
Son’s preference within the family, domestic violence are some other issues that often occur within the family structure.
Critique of Mainstream Research: Feminists argue that early Indian sociologists had focussed only on the Hindu joint family in terms of classical and sanskritic usage and ignored the family structures and kinship ideals and practices of non-Hindus including south and north-east India, lower castes, of non patrilineal communities and others.
They also did not focus on various kinship patterns in different regions and also the position of women.
Through Irawati Karve’s work only, we can get a comparative study on kinship and marriage in north and south Indian families that threw some light on different patterns of kinship and its effects on its members especially that of women.
Thus, according to feminists, mainstream studies has failed to inform about practical challenges related to the institution of family in India and it wrongly portrayed the family as an egalitarian and harmonious institution benefitting all
Familial Ideology and Women’s Subordinate Status
Women are subject to the violent behaviour in the name of family honour that subordinates women and provides power to men in order to obtain control on women’s self and sexuality.
It shows that how the honour of family remains dependent upon the purity of female sexuality.
In order to maintain this purity, families socialize its members especially females to control their sexuality Gitare not allowed to get attracted towards any male remain pure.
Restrictions on mobility, maintaining purdah, early marriage of girls, etc. are certain practices adopted by a family in maintaining caste boundaries and for protecting its purity and honour.
Thus, men are provided with power rights over females.
As ainstream scholars support patriarchal ideology and observe nothing wrong in its reproduction, feminists argue that the process of gender socialization is based on rituals and ceremonies, the use of language, and practices within the family.
Due to the desire for the baby boy, girl child grow up with the notion of temporary and secondary membership within the natal home.
Most of the burden regarding to domestic household work is imposed on girls, while boys generally remain free and accompany their male elders.
Also division of labour kept women away from the market oriented income generating productive work thus making women economically dependent on men.
Dalit Feminists Critique of Family Studies
Dalit Bahujan feminists argue that in sphere of easte inequality, it is important to understand the politics of difference for understanding the dalit women’s subjugation.
According to queer critiques, feminist questioned gender roles, subordination of women, violence against women, unequal rights to property and decision-making and others within family, but they neglected the role sexuality played in determining family form, and the unequal distribution of power within.
According to Rinchin, violence in the sphere of family can be seen as a serious concern but it never threatened the validity, its relevance and existence of the family institution itself.
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