Family and Gender - Changing Values in Germany and India

Family and Gender - Changing Values in Germany and India

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Author: Margrit Pernau
Imtiaz Ahmad/Helmut Reifeld
Editor: Margrit Pernau, Imtiaz Ahmad and Helmut Reifeld
Publisher: Sage Publications
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 360
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0761996184

Description

Both family and gender are topics that have been discussed and debated at length. However, in recent years there has been a growing recognition that the two need to be studied together in order to understand their interdependence. Keeping this in mind, the contributors to this volume concentrate on four major propositions:

In the same way that gender cannot be culled directly from the biological sex, the concept of family does not follow naturally from the ties of blood but involves a cultural construction.

It is no longer valid to regard the family as an anthropomorphic entity which plans and acts with one voice, its good being the good of every single member of the family, but necessary to see it as a space not only of harmony, but also of power relations. This involves a consistent gendering of the family and a reading of the traditional images of the family with a regard sharpened by gender awareness.

Far from being a private refuge protected from the onslaught of political forces, the family is decisively shaped by society and state. The distribution of functions between the family and other social institutions is open to constant negotiation.

To sharpen our understanding of the interaction of normative images of the family and social reality, it is necessary to focus on the margins of the family and to investigate those forms of living which either refuse to correspond to the traditional notion of the family or which are, for social or economic reasons, denied access to this model.

These themes are dealt with in the four corresponding sections of the volume, the first covering the social history of the family; the second concentrating on images and symbolic practices; the third emphasizing the interaction between the family and the state; and the last stressing the fault lines of the family. An important feature of this volume is that it brings together perspectives from Germany and India, which together de-naturalize, de-biologise and de-mythologise the concept of family within the medium of gender.

Exploring important themes relating to both gender and family and their interface, and providing a unique cross-cultural perspective, this volume will be of interest to scholars and students in the fields of gender studies, family studies, sociology, social anthropology, political science and cultural studies.

Contents

Preface

HELMUT REIFELD

Introduction

Family: A Gendering and Gendered Space
MARGRIT PERNAU

SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE FAMILY

Between the Ideal and the Real: Gender relations within the Indian Joint Family
IMTIAZ AHMAD

The Persisting Image versus Economic and Demographic Changes: The Three-Generation House-hold in Europe
GUNILLA-FRIEDERIKE BUDDE

The Diverse Life-worlds of Indian Childhood
VASANTHI RAMAN

IMAGES AND SYMBOLIC PRACTICES

The Householder, grhastha, in the Mahabharata
CHATURVEDI BADRINATH

Motherhood and Female Identity: Religious Advice Literature for Women in German Catholicism and Indian Islam
MARGRIT PERNAU

Changing Masculinities in Central Europe: Duelling and it Aftermath
UTE FREVERT

Virtuous Mother, Virile Hero and Warrior Queen: The Conception of Gender and Family in Hindutva
KATHARIAN POGGENDORF-KAKAR

THE FAMILY AND THE STATE

Gender and Family: State Intervention in India
NANDINI AZAD

State Interest in the Family: Social Change and Social Policy in Germany
HELMUT REIFELD

Gender in Governance: Women, Family and Constitutional Panchayats of Contemporary India
SHAIL MAYARAM

FAULT LINES
The Marginal Families
NIRMALA BANERJEE

Politics of Gender and Class: Women in Indian Industries
SAMITA SEN

Private Crimes and Public Sanction: Violence against Women in the Family
U VINDHYA

About the Editors and Contributors

Index