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THE PEOPLE
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SOCIAL LIFE
(i) The joint family under the protection of a grand-father and
a grand-mother with not only brothers and sisters, but even cousins under the same roof and a house with a score of rooms and balconies
and galleries will only be rarely met with in some villages of the district. Even brothers when married now live together in a few instances, but the joint family has positively broken down. The matriarchal system nowhere prevails. The patriarch also is now extinct. Ancestral property according to Hindu usage is divided equally among sons and if in the life-time of a father, his sons and he begin to live apart, the property has to be equally shared. With recent amendments in Hindu law even a sister has a share in the father's property when it is ancestral. In the case of self-acquired property, the owner of it can dispose it of in any way he likes. He need not, if he so chooses leave, anything to his sons or daughters and gift it away to any charitable or religious or any other purpose. This could be done by leaving will behind. The issue-less parents used to adopt sons, but even that tendency is now weakening under the stress of modern ideas. Instances of a widowed mother and her adopted son coming to loggerheads are by no means rare and the old idea of having one's family name perpetuated is no longer found fascinating enough to go in for adoptions. The other-worldly consideration of having a son to perform the shraddha etc. for the benefit of the dead in after-death life(?) does not also carry much weight with men who under the influence of modern education are developing a materialistic outlook on life and affairs.
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