India Family
By: Scott and Caroline
There are two major ethnic groups in the Asian country of India, and within them are many different types of family structures. Some family types are very similar to those of the United States, Europe, and other Asian countries, and others are unique to the area.

Click on the picture of woman and child to view weblinks that are related to the topic of this page.

 
Peoples in India
There are two major ethnic groups in India. Click on the pictures of the peoples to read more about each.
  •  
  • Dravidians 
  • Indo-Aryans

 
Dravidians
One of the two largest ethnic groups in India, the Dravidians were the country's earliest inhabitants. They are dark-skinned and live in Southern India. The Dravidians make up 25% of India's peoples.
 
Indo-Aryans
The other of the two  largest ethnic groups in India, the Indo-Aryans are much lighter skinned. They invaded the Dravidians  in 1500 B.C., and drove them south. They now live in the northern areas of India. The Indo-Aryans make up 72% of India's peoples.

 
 

Click on the picture of the family to return to the peoples in India.

 
 
In Indian culture, there are nuclear and extended families, although extended is more common. Usually, in  nuclear families, the children are usually raised by the mother while the father is working. The traditional roles in a Indian family are that the father farms or fishes to get food for the family, while the mother stays at home to care for the young, cook, and clean. In more educated and prosperous areas in India, the roles of the father may include working to earn a living to buy food instead of raising and growing it himself. Although this is the traditional Indian family, there are other structures that may not be as familiar to us.

 
Marriage Customs
In India, the parents arrange all aspects of a wedding. They plan the small ceremony, invite the guests, and even decide who their child will be marrying. (Although the child is allowed to reject his/her parent's choice.) Indian marriage is more of a joining between families than a joining of two people.
 
  • Variations in Family Structure
  • There are two major ethnic groups in the Asian country of India.
Polygyny
Polygyny, the practice of having multiple wives, is practiced by a tiny minority of Indian families. It is usually a result of a first wife's inability to bear children.

 
Polyandry
Polyandry, the practice of having multiple husbands, is also practiced by a small minority of Indian people. In these small regions, fraternal polyandry is practiced. In this practice, the household would include a set of brothers with a wfie or common set of wives. In this family type, the brothers share land, and it is linked to the extreme scarcity of arable land in the Himalayan region, because it discourages the fragmentation of holdings.

 

 
Matriliny
Indian peoples of the northeastern hill region are known for their practice of matriliny, or tracing inheritance in the female line, as opposed to the more traditional male line. The khasis (an ethnic or tribal people in the state of Meghalaya) is one of the largest of these groups. The group is divided up into matrilineal clans, in which the youngest daughter recieves all of the inheritance, including the house. In the Khasi culture, a Khasi husband would go to live in a wife's house, as opposed to vice versa. Also, the Khasi people have the highest literacy rate in all of India, while Khasi women maintain notale authority in the family and community, and many Khasi people have converted to Christianity.

 
 

 
 
India's Statistics
Population:
                            1,029,991,145 (July 2001 est.) 

Age structure:
                            0-14 years:  33.12% (male 175,630,537; female 165,540,672) 

                            15-64 years:  62.2% (male 331,790,850; female 308,902,864) 

                            65 years and over:  4.68% (male 24,439,022; female 23,687,200) (2001 est.) 

Population growth rate:
                            1.55% (2001 est.) 

Birth rate:
                            24.28 births/1,000 population (2001 est.) 

Death rate:
                            8.74 deaths/1,000 population (2001 est.) 

Net migration rate:
                            -0.08 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2001 est.) 

Sex ratio:
                            at birth:  1.05 male(s)/female 

                            under 15 years:  1.06 male(s)/female 

                            15-64 years:  1.07 male(s)/female 

                            65 years and over:  1.03 male(s)/female 

                            total population:  1.07 male(s)/female (2001 est.) 
Infant mortality rate:
                            63.19 deaths/1,000 live births (2001 est.) 

Life expectancy at birth:
                            total population:  62.86 years 

                            male:  62.22 years 

                            female:  63.53 years (2001 est.) 

Total fertility rate:
                            3.04 children born/woman (2001 est.) 

HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence
                      rate:
                            0.7% (1999 est.) 

HIV/AIDS - people living with
                  HIV/AIDS:
                            3.7 million (1999 est.) 

HIV/AIDS - deaths:
                            310,000 (1999 est.) 

Nationality:
                            noun:  Indian(s) 

                            adjective:  Indian 

Ethnic groups:
                            Indo-Aryan 72%, Dravidian 25%, Mongoloid and other 3% (2000) 

Religions:
                            Hindu 81.3%, Muslim 12%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.9%, other groups including Buddhist, Jain, Parsi 2.5% (2000) 

Languages:
                            English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication,
                            Hindi the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people, Bengali (official), Telugu (official), Marathi (official),
                            Tamil (official), Urdu (official), Gujarati (official), Malayalam (official), Kannada (official), Oriya (official), Punjabi (official),
                            Assamese (official), Kashmiri (official), Sindhi (official), Sanskrit (official), Hindustani (a popular variant of Hindi/Urdu spoken
                            widely throughout northern India) 
 

Literacy:
                            definition:  age 15 and over can read and write 

                            total population:  52% 

                            male:  65.5% 

                            female:  37.7% (1995 est.) 

 

Click on the picture of the family to return to the top of the statistics.

Click on the picture of the family eating to return to the variations in family structure.

 
 
Web Links

 
 

    Click on India's flag to return to the top of the page.