Revision summary
Family is kinship; household is coresidence and consumption. Census and NFHS count households, not the full family net. Household development: wage, migration, partition, female headship. Shah: household cycle rather than a one-way nuclear end. Welfare that targets the household can miss family patriarchy.
Model answer
Introduction
Family is a kinship and marriage relation of belonging. Household is a residential and consumption unit that may or may not match that relation. Development of the household names how that residential-economic unit changes with work, migration, and the state.
Body
Family versus household
- Family: who is kin, who may marry, who inherits. Irawati Karve’s kinship map is about family.
- Household: who shares a hearth, budget, and roof. The Census house and NFHS household are this unit.
- A migrant’s family can span two houses. A hostel mess is a household without a family.
Development of the household
- From a peasant joint production unit toward wage-dependent urban flats, remittance houses, and female-headed units.
- A. M. Shah and others showed the Indian household cycle: partition, not a simple death of the joint family.
- Development programmes target the household as a welfare unit, which can hide intra-household patriarchy, after Ann Oakley and Kandiyoti.
Why the distinction matters
- Poverty lines and rations attach to households; honour and endogamy attach to families.
- SHGs may develop women’s cash inside a household whose property remains a patriarchal family.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD FAM[Family kin marriage] --> SPAN[May span houses] HH[Household hearth budget] --> CENSUS[Census NFHS unit] DEV[Development wage migration welfare] --> HH PAT[Patriarchy] --> BOTH[Both units]
Conclusion
Family is kin belonging; household is coresidence and common consumption. Development of the household is the changing economic-residential form under wage, migration, and welfare. Do not read a smaller house as the end of the family.
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