In India, family plays a crucial role in a person’s life. The members of an Indian family always have strong bonds between each other, which is very hard to break. This is the reason why you will find less numbers of divorce cases in India, compared to other countries. India has a unique family system called joint family, in which the sons of a family live together in the same house even after getting married, along with their parents and unmarried sisters. The daughters-in-law of the family treat their in-laws as their own parents, brothers, and sisters, and live in harmony. In this system, the children have an opportunity to learn a lot of things and morals from their grandparents, uncles and aunties, besides learning from their own parents. They also have their cousins in the same family to play with and grow with fun. They understand the meaning of love better.

Usually, marriages are arranged by the parents of the bride and the groom, rather than by themselves. The parents select a suitable life partner for their son or daughter, and then ask for the opinion of their children. If they too like each other, then the marriage is arranged.

India is a male dominated country, and so the husband always has an upper hand in the family affairs and decisions. Usually, the husband is the bread winner for the family, and the women are confined to household work and bringing up children of the family.

Parents have a stronger hold on the lives of their children, even after they have grown up sufficiently to decide on their own. For example, if a boy gets a job, he consults with his parents and gets their permission before accepting the job.

Girls are brought up in a very conservative way in India. Especially in rural areas, girls are never allowed to make boy friends. In fact, parents don’t allow them to even talk to boys freely. So dating is an unknown phenomenon to the rural Indian girls. This may sound very primitive to people outside India, but it helps a lot in avoiding unnecessary teenage problems like pregnancy before marriage, falling a victim to unsuitable boys, etc. Girls know what sex is only after marriage. In fact, girls are brought up from their childhood with stories about chaste women, and taught that women should never have sex with men other than their husbands. This way of conservative parenting helps a lot in holding the couple together forever after marriage. Such a system of parenting is passed on from generation to generation, from mothers to daughters.

Looking after the old parents is the duty of the sons, not the daughters. For this reason, parents think that they should have at least one male child, and keep on trying if they get all daughters. This is the main reason for the abnormal increase in the population of India. But this phenomenon is slowly changing nowadays. Educated parents stop with one or two children only.

In summary, the family values in India are so great that there are lessons for the whole world to be learned.