India for ages has had a prevailing tradition of the joint family system. It’s a system under which even extended members of a family like one’s parents, children, the children’s spouses and their offspring, etc. live together. The elder-most, usually the male member is the head in the joint Indian family system who makes all important decisions and rules, whereas other family members abide by it.
Arranged marriages have the tradition in Indian society for centuries. Even today, overwhelming majority of Indians have their marriages planned by their parents and other respected family-members, with the consent of the bride and groom.[6] Arranged matches were made after taking into account factors such as age, height, personal values and tastes, the backgrounds of their families (wealth, social standing) and their castes and the astrological compatibility of the couples' horoscopes.
In India, the marriage is thought to be for life[7], and the divorce rate is extremely low — 1.1% compared with about 50% in the United States.[8] The arranged marriages generally have a much lower divorce rate. The divorce rates have risen significantly in recent years:
- "Opinion is divided over what the phenomenon means: for traditionalists the rising numbers portend the breakdown of society while, for some modernists, they speak of a healthy new empowerment for women."[9]
Although child marriage was outlawed in 1860, it is continued to be practiced in some rural parts of India.[10] According to UNICEF’s “State of the World’s Children-2009” report, 47% of India's women aged 20–24 were married before the legal age of 18, with 56% in rural areas.[11] The report also showed that 40% of the world's child marriages occur in India.[12]
Indian names are based on a variety of systems and naming conventions, which vary from region to region. Names are also influenced by religion and caste and may come from religion or epics. India's population speaks a wide variety of languages.
Although women and men are equal before the law and the trend toward gender equality has been noticeable, women and men still occupy distinct functions in Indian society.Woman's role in the society is often to perform household works and pro bono community work[4]. This low rate of participation has ideological and historical reasons. Women and women's issues appear only 7-14% of the time in news programs.[4] In most Indian families, women do not own any property in their own names, and do not get a share of parental property.[13] Due to weak enforcement of laws protecting them, women continue to have little access to land and property.[14] In many families, especially rural ones, the girls and women face nutritional discrimination within the family, and are anaemic and malnourished.[13] They still lag behind men in terms of income and job status. Traditional Hindu art, such as Rangoli (or Kolam), is very popular among Indian women. Popular and influential woman's magazines include Femina, Grihshobha and Woman's Era.
