What are the Disadvantages of Joint Family?

Joint Family has its disadvantages. The main defects of joint family are as follows:

1) Home for Idler:

Joint family rests on collective responsibility. This sometimes accounts for laziness among some members. No doubt the active members do hard work. But when they get equal share in the food cooked at the common hearth, some members may become lazy and may not feel the necessity of doing any productive work. They spend their time in eating, sleeping and begetting children.

2) Hindrance in the development of personality:

Joint family hinders the development of personality. Under the joint family system the head of the family or Karta is all in all. He is the sole authority to take any decision in family affairs. Other members, especially the juniors do not get a chance to think independently to take any independent decision. Thus development of personality is arrested.

3) Favours uncontrolled reproduction:

Joint family is said to be associated with higher birth rate. Member does not feel the need of birth control because the children rest on the family as a whole.

4) Hot bed of quarrel:

Joint family is the hotbed of quarrels and bickering. Quarrels are common among the female members of the family. Quarrels between the wives of brother, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is very common.

5) Source of litigation:

Sometimes joint-family system encourages, litigation. At the time of the partition of movable or immovable property in the family dispute assumes serious proportion and most of the time these are not settled without the interference of the court of law.

6) Loss of privacy:

Over crowdedness in joint family kills one’s privacy. The newly married man and his wife hardly get the time to meet and talk rarely in joint family.

7) Low position of women:

Under the joint family system the woman is relegated to low status. Her condition in the family is worse. Particularly the condition of a daughter-in-law is very miserable. She is often ill-treated by her mother-in-law. Her life is no way better than that of a slave. In many cases, the ill treatment by the elderly women becomes so unbearable that they seek a permanent relief in committing suicide.