Family plays a very crucial role in building the mental state of a person. You can easily confirm if a person is facing some family issues by observing his behavior. Family conflicts can leave a negative impact on office life by badly affecting the job performance and decrease the productivity of a person in an office environment. If an employee can not think straight as his mind is not fully focused due to family issues then obviously he won't function well. Therefore, a peaceful family environment can nurture the work abilities of a person.
Most of the families in our area are joint families because we live in a village. Each family is comprised of enough members, even they can make an Australian football team as they need to make a team of 18 players 😂 (As per google).
There are different kinds of families. But our main focus would be around two families; a Joint family and Nuclear Family.
Joint Family
Joint Family is when the whole family lives together under one roof. Whole family means say parents and brothers along with their spouses and offspring in a single house. In this family system, Male children don't need to leave their houses after marriage and they bring their wives to live with them as a joint family. This system can be mostly found in rural areas of India and Pakistan. If this system can be in your area too, then please mention it in the comment section.
Advantages of Joint Family
The most important advantage of a Joint Family is financial support. There are many financial earners in the joint family and if in case one of them gets unemployed then the remaining family members can provide the financial support the family needs. So joint family is the best system in which the financial burden on an individual can be reduced. There is less financial stress because everyone contributes.
A person living in a joint family system can never complain of getting bored as there are always people around him doing different activities which can never make him feel bored.
Joint family is best for children as they can always play with their cousins and learn how to live and adjust with others. They will also develop the art of sharing.
Joint family is also a big provider of emotional support. All family member will cherish your achievements and they will also provide humongous support in the time of sadness and sorrow.
Living with elders like grandparents, aunties, uncles, and cousins can be a big source of learning. Life is all about experiences and learning from those experiences can be far more essential than learning books. Some lessons can be taught only by life, not by books.
Joint family is also the provider of care and love. Whenever a person is sick, the whole family takes care of him. Therefore, a person living in a joint family knows the importance and value of relationships. The children also have family values.
Disadvantages of Joint Family
The most important disadvantage is the lack of personal space and privacy. Sometimes everyone needs some personal space and privacy in life but it is impossible because many people are living in the same house.
When many people are living together, conflicts are bound to happen in such kinds of families. Those conflicts mostly started because of children fighting with each other which leads to conflicts between the adults.
Sometimes the injustice happens when the whole financial support of the family is put on an individual member just because the remaining might be struggling. Sometimes other male members are also earning but they are saving for themselves and not providing for the family. This could lead to conflicts and problems in the family.
Most daughters-in-law are affectees of joint family systems. They don't have the freedom of doing something on their own and they are mostly dominated by the mothers-in-law. They have to go according to the specific rules set by their mothers-in-law.
Interference is a major problem in joint families. As you cannot raise children according to your will. Because the elders of the family will always teach you how to parent your children. The interference is not only limited to the parent as elders also interfere in the personal life and decisions of the children. Children have to gain the trust of their elders before taking the important decisions of their life. And if they fail, then they can't take that decision which leads to anxiety issues and also those children lack self-confidence because they cannot even make their own decisions. They may become dependent on their elders for taking the decisions of their whole life.
I think this article is getting way too long and if I start writing about the nuclear family system, it will take 10 mins to read. That's why I am finishing this article right now and I will write about the nuclear family system in the next article. I am planning to even write about the conclusion between which family system is best in another article too.
Thank you very much for reading this article.
In joint family system there are a lot of advantages which can not be compare with its disadvantages as when any family member face some financial problem then at least he or she do have roof on head plus other give support in food and other necessities.