Domestic Violence, Family Structure and Status of Married Women- a Comparative Study of Joint Family and Nuclear Family System in Jodhpur ( India)

Domestic violence against women is a global problem and present in every country cutting across the boundaries of culture, class, education, income, ethnicity and age. Domestic violence is related to family structure, and to greater extent to social structure and the prevailing systems of values and beliefs of a particular culture. In the specific context of familial relationships, social norms dictate the specific roles and expected behaviour of the various members of the family which have impact on and violent act in the family system. It is interesting to research these power differentials within the family – power differentials that structure the occurrence, the subjective experience, as well as the adjudicatory evaluation of domestic violence. In India, the joint family system has been in existence since ancient time; however, with the passage of time, the joint family system has disintegrated, giving rise to the nuclear family system. Women belong to joint or nuclear family varied significantly on the issue of domestic violence. In this backdrop this paper tries to explore the relationship between family structure and incident of domestic violence on the women of age group of 21-50 in the city of Jodhpur. This is a cross sectional study in 100 families (50 joint families and 50 nuclear families). Families are selected by using random sampling method including all married members of family with a semi structured questionnaire to interview the respondent members of family. The questions included demographic profile, satisfaction with current family pattern, opinions about changing trends of family, occurrence of violent act, socio-psychological impact on the women, awareness about legal norms. Finally the suggestion are provided based on the research conducted to overcome the situation.