Social Conventions and Moral Obligations in Young Children’s Care: Illustrations from Rural Families of Northern India

The family in India is a vibrant, complex group that functions on the assumption of interdependence and complementarity of roles and relationships. Patriarchal and patrilocal joint families remain the ideal kin group for a large population of the subcontinent, but this can take many different forms related to co-residence, commensality, branches and subdivisions within the larger group. In the northern Indian rural households from which the illustrations in this article are drawn, household boundaries are largely permeable, the care of children is a shared activity. Whereas older adult members are responsible for keeping a close watch on the children of the family, the adults, usually parents go about their daily work, whether in the home, fields, businesses or employment. Children are a subsystem of mixed ages, constituting siblings, cousins, visiting kin and often even selected neighbours. Women work for the household, which usually includes cattle-care and farming but may also be employed in jobs outside the home in some instances. This active social institution is held together by social conventions and moral obligations. In this article, we provide insights into the ways in which the dynamics of conventions and obligations are expressed, experienced and maintained in relationships between adults and children and among children.