In the by-gone days, multiple generations comprising parents, their children and grand children would live under a single roof. The oldest male member of the family was considered the head of the family with the right to lay down the rules and arbitrate disputes. Grandparents had the responsibility of teaching the children their mother tongue, manners and etiquettes. In this way a strong bond with our culture was developed.

Even today, as in the past, the joint family system help us to learn interpersonal relationship and living in a society.
By living together the kids feel closer to their grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins; they understand them more and establish a trusting relationship, which is not possible when they meet occasionally.

The joint family system contributes to our security, health and prosperity, and could help us to live a less stressful life. The reason being, in joint family we have a lot of people around to help us and to share our sorrows and joys, and we can lean upon them in times of trouble.

But in this modern era the nuclear family system is the call of the day. Most joint families have broken into pieces and independent and single families have emerged.

Now in place of joint family we have a “Micro Family”, where there is father, mother and their children. As the children grow up and get married they move out and set separate homes.

The main cause of young adults breaking away from their families is a desire for freedom, which is in no way a bad idea at all. We all want to live independently; hence, in order to avoid interference and uninvited opinions the younger generation prefers moving out. When the parents and their adult children are unable to get along well and disagree on different issues, nuclear families are formed.

To a certain extent we can say that this change has come about because in this age of competition everyone is in pursuit of material pleasure and success, and nobody is bothered about anybody. Though living separately may bring lots of inconvenience, people seem to prefer nuclear families. Taking just one example, in this modern era many women are working outside homes; in a joint family if some young mothers are career oriented other members of the family, like grandmother and aunts, look after the young children, giving them opportunity to pursue their career. But in nuclear family this is not possible and young women often have to sacrifice their career in order to take care of the child.

Another reason why the joint family system is losing its significance is the belief that children raised in a joint family are shyer and lack confidence due to the authoritative behaviour of their elders; they are more suppressed and are hardly able to make their own decisions due to more dependency, as opposed to children raised in nuclear families.
Every individual has certain flaws and qualities in his or her personality. Your parents can bear with any weaknesses you may have but your other relatives would not, no matter how close they are to you. Eventually your parents also begin to criticise you, sometimes just to calm the other people.

In a joint family sometimes differences of opinion become so big that it is even beyond the control of the elders to settle the disputes, whereas in nuclear family where there is less interference of others, fewer problems arise.
A nuclear life makes you independent and enables you to bring up your children the way you want without much interference. It is exciting to explore, experiment and establish a living set-up on one`s own.

Every person needs privacy, some time to be alone, but being a part of a joint family sometimes it is not possible to sit alone and ponder. Interference of other members in some personal matter is never desirable, but in a joint family, living together it is not always possible to keep one`s affairs private. As many families live together they often start highlighting and even exploiting others` weaknesses, which also create political arena in the household.

Most parents tend to always keep their children under their domination even when they have come of age and are in a position to take charge of their lives. I personally believe that there comes a time when parents have to really “let go” and let the grown up children face realities of life and make decisions for themselves.

Problems often arise when parents try to dictate their terms to their married children, especially when they have problems with their spouse. As children invariably look up to their parents as role models, the parents should act as a guide and explain the phenomenon of social norms rather than simply condemn or take sides.

Initially, people found it difficult to accept change in the society. They were not happy to see the disintegration of family values and system.

The emergence of individualistic nuclear families saddened them. However, gradually with the passage of time when nuclear families became the order of the day, the old generation accepted the realities and began to feel comfortable with this new system.
As both systems have their advantages and drawbacks it is not in any way possible to say which system is better. What may be good for one family or set of individuals may not be fit for others.