THE JOINT FAMILY

11. Success in marriage ~ 248 ~ should live separately after marriage. On the face of it, this appears to be a good idea. But often the initial charm wears off, and they feel that their situation is worse than if they had opted for the joint family system. I have seen many girls who managed to wean their husbands away from their parents. But then after living alone for some time, life became so burdensome for them that it seemed little better than a treadmill. In a joint family, a woman makes only psychological sacrifices, whereas in a nuclear family it is her whole existence which is sacrificed. The latter is much more difficult than the former. Making an assessment of the woman’s role in western society, Arnold Toynbee wrote: “Middleclass woman acquired education and a chance at a career at the very time she lost her domestic servants and the unpaid household help of relatives living in the old, large family; she had to become either a household drudge or carry the intolerably heavy load of two simultaneous fulltime jobs.”206 It is because girls are upset by certain unpleasant aspects of joint family living that they opt for living