The Joint Family System’ A Blessing or a need of Society

Posted by Admin on Oct 22, 2011 in Social Issues | 16 comments

 

Having all the Chachass, Tayaas and Phopos under one roof with dozens of cousins living together from years of years and enjoying their lives at their fullest.

 

The family.  We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another’s desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.  ~Erma Bombeck

 

The word family itself creates its magic. Family is another name of love, support, hope, optimism, pleasure, cooperation, the most generous, true companion of one, the world’s best critics of us, sympathetic, and helpful in every way. A family is a gift of GOD in one’s life. No matter how much you are in trouble, your family will never leave you alone and without their help. There is nothing in the world which can be replaced by a family. Having a team of 20 to 25 people, looks like a single unit, having all the ancestral values and traditions, it is really worthwhile to live with your family. Loss of one’s family is really a big loss which can’t be compensated. other thing may changed but we always start and end with the discussion on own families.

 

A family plays a fundamental role in one’s life. We can consider a family like a spine of a person’s life and that is really true. One cannot survive without family’s support and love. Every one in this world needs assistance from his loved ones. In every field of life, in every crucial and critical moment, whether it is sorrow or happiness we need our family at our back. And having this satisfaction meant a lot for a person’s courage. We need family because we need love, support, and affection, to pamper us to guide us to help us in tuff times and to show us the right path.

People believe that having a family is really a blessing and a feeling of contentment for one.

 

 

“If you start feeling like you have the goofiest, craziest, most dysfunctional family in the world. All you have to do is go to a state fair, you will be going, you know, we are alright, we dang near royalty.”

Jeff Foxworthy

Keeping in view the word family, we are very much aware of the concept of joint family system in world. Having all the chachass, tayaas and phopos under one roof with dozens of cousins living together from years of years. Still we can see this in our villages and small town. These people are living together in a hawali.enjoying their life at fullest. Another advantage of such a big family in villages is the impact of big family i-e in villages they used to feel proud about having such a large family, so no one can dare to touch them or harm them. But now-a-days inPakistanwe can’t witness this joint family system in big cities. Now people love to live independently. Your son got married, now you have to arrange a whole separate home for him after few weeks of his marriage. The new generation inPakistanlikes the nuclear family system i-e living separately from parents. For our generation living separately means having all the freedom of doing anything n everything.

This concept of nuclear family is growing day by day. People really like this idea of having an independent house. The reason behind the growth of this idea is industrialization. Now people have more opportunities of jobs and work. So many people migrated from town to cities, leaving behind their families. Many people prefer to do these jobs and live independently. This is the biggest reason behind increasing ratio of nuclear families, which is sad but true.

A 17 year old boy said…

“I think it is a total disaster to live in a joint family. I believe each and every individual has some own flaws and qualities and they need to have their time to develop and grow individually a joint family system screws this up so bad. like for example if there is a weakness in your personality your own parents can take that but your relatives wont.do you think its fun to live in a joint family system with all the chachas,chachies and phopos?i really don’t think so…”

Similarly a student of MS Ammar Ahmad said the same thing in another way that is…

“We have natural love for our parents and siblings but having the same love for our uncle and aunties is quite impossible. You can’t love and treat them naturally as u do withUrparents. So there is a difference.”

Talking to these youngsters is really worthwhile because their views are not same to old ones.they took this joint family scene as a more restricted, under controlled,more confined kind of system. They believe that having nuclear family is more easy,smooth and burdensome for them.our youngsters took it as a sign of freedom,living all alone and taking decisions without asking permissions n all that.according to them this is the freedom…which is not so true but every one has a right to say what he/she think.

 

Joint family system has its own pros and cons. In joint families, it is true that you have to live according to your elders; you have to consider them first in your every matter of life. Every single activity in home should be done after asking their permission. Even your mums have to ask your dadima “aj khane mien kya banega ammijaan???”you are not allowed to take decisions alone or without the permission of grandparents. And many other things like that.

You definitely will not be able to have your privacy. Having 25 to 30 people at home how it is possible to find a private spot for yourself?

 

 

But at the same time, in joint family parents can easily brought up their children. One can teach his child all the family values and traditions with the help of grand parents, they can easily inject their culture in their new born. The working mummies don’t have to be worried about their babies because baby is definitely in safe hands at home. And dozens of people are their, to take good care of baby.

In separate and independent homes people got far more away from their parents and children from their grandparents and feel disconnected. An unseen formality comes between you and your family. The extraordinary and lively feeling of “WE” got disappeared.

26 year old Ali said…

“I can’t even think of getting separate from my family. My grand parents are my life I love them a lot. I spend 26 years of my life with them. I can’t imagine my life without their presence and blessings. Me and my wife both are working and our 6 year doll stay at home with her grandparents. I can’t teach her those values as good as my parents and grand parents will.”

Keeping the socio-economic factor in mind every one will surely prefer the joint family. the reason behind this is that in a nuclear family there will be more burden economically on one’s shoulder.in this regard Dr Bushra Hameed-ur-Rehman,Assistant Professor of Social Science in PU explains this phenomenon wonderfully …

“The socio-economic conditions of our country does not allow us to live separately or independently.we really cant afford that.we can understand this easily by this example.suppose a family having 8 brother and parents living together under one roof.so,they have one tv set,one telephone connection and one vehicle at their home.or you can say that 2 or 3 cars at home which is enough for them.but now suppose these all brothers got separated.now imagine 8 houses,having 8 telephone connections,8 vehicles,8 tv sets and a lot of things which will be increased by the digit of 8 because now you have created 8 homes.this is a hell burden economically.because you are going to built 8 homes at once.which is not affordable for every brother. another thing is, to avoid separation, a man should create balance between his wife and his parents it is his duty to oblige them equally. and to maintain that balance by equally fulfill their rights.so then there will be no need of separation.”

 

Joint family system in the eyes of Islam: what Islam said about joint family system or nuclear family system? What are the Islam teachings? Now it is surprising for many of us that for joint family, there is a big NO in Islam. The reason behind this is very reasonable and justified.

Everyone knows that in Islam Muslim women have to do parda (veil) and it is compulsory for them, to cover their faces and bodies properly from na-mahrams(stranger men).so, in this regard women have to cover their faces from thier cousins, sister’s husband and husband’s brothers. Now the question arises what kind of parda? because in Islam women follows different kind of veil so that is another debate. InPakistanand many other Islamic countries women follow this practice regularly as well as live in a joint family.

 

According to Hafiz Abdul Wahid (KhateebPakistanarmy)…

“The concept of joint family system is nowhere in Islam. Those men whose can marry a woman like dewar (husband’s younger brother),jaith(husband’s elder brother),cant live in the same house. Same is the case with husband,as he can not live with his wife relatives i-e with his Sali(wife’s sister) under one roof. So wife and husband both are not allowed to have their relatives under one roof. You can easily understand this by this example that a woman can not marry with her father-in-law (sasur) so she can live with him under one roof.”

 

There is also a concept of “DEPENDENTS” of a man.that is islam specifies a man’s dependents that are his parents,wife and children.it is a man’s duty to oblige them all equally.and he is answerable to ALLAH for them.but on the other side a women is not responsible for his husband’s parents.that it is not compulsory for her to serve them.but if she can do this it will be wonderful but one should keep in mind that it is not her duty.islam gave the concept of “Siltu’r Rehm”.so if she serve her in-laws then there is surely ajar(reward) for her.

 

Islam is the religion of peace and prosperity.islam always gives solution of the problems.a family can live together but according to the instruction and teaching of Islam. And we have many examples of this joint family system that follows Islam in every possible way.

 

So, both the systems have their own pros and cons. it is up to u which system attracts you and which system is comfortable for one. In Pakistan people are more into nuclear family system but still joint families exist.   

By: Hira Farooq – Journalist 

The above feature was published in Eye Candy Magazine (The Post)