I.P. Desai studied a small port town in Gujarat called ‘Mahuva’ in the early sixties. Based on the data collected. i.P. Desai examined the question of jointness in terms of religion, occupation, relations, property, education, urbanisation, kinship obligations, and household composition. Besides the structural aspect of family, I.P. Desai examined carefully the types of jointness based on degree, intensity and orientation with regard to functions and obligations which people perform for each other, though living separately and at different far off places.
Desai finds the following five types of degrees of jointness:
1. Households with zero degree of jointness.
2. Households of low degree of jointness. (Joint by way of the fulfillment of mutual obligations.)
3. Households with high degree of jointness (Jointness by way of common ownership of property.)
4. Households with higher degree of jointness (Marginallyjoint families.)
5. Households of highest degree of jointness. (Traditional joint families.)
Thus according to I.P. Desai, the structural breakdown is only apparent but not real. Today’s joint family may give rise to several nuclear families and each nuclear family may become a small joint family and after two decades when grand children are born, the depth of generations becomes three. Indian family is altering between nuclearness and jointness in a cyclical fashion.
