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THE IDEAL OF INDIAN WOMANHOOD
throat. Individualisin has not disrupted family as such. Some freedom for women, their partial liberation stunt the overlordship of men, repudiation of the dogma about the indissolubility of marriage, practice of divorse--all these shocking innovations have neither disrupted society, nor roken up the family.
The family is not the insiruinent for the Tcalisation of any mystic or metaphysical ideal. It is an institution which rises with the creation of private property, and therefore remains the unii. of society as long as society continues to be based upon private ownship. Only, its structure changes in course of the evolution of private property. Each form of private ownership is associated with a specific type of family. The Indian idcal of polygamous joint family is based upon the patriarchal property relations. If the practicc of polygamy is declining, that is because of economic reasons which, in their turn, grow out of the decomposition of the patriarchal property relations constituting the foundation of joint family.
Western capitalist society is reared upon the foundation of monogamous family. So, the opposing ideals are not familyism and individualism. It is a matter of choice between two forms of family. The morc backward type is proclaimed to be the Indian ideal. As the antithesis of individualism, familyism is a new name for the hoary institution of patriarchalism. The preference of
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