The Family, the Common Good and Citizenship. The Case of India

This paper attempts to relate the material and ideological features of the institution of the family with their possible implications for the advancement of the common good in the Indian context. It begins with a theoretical discussion of the respects in which the common good at the levels of family and society may or may not be related. The second section briefly describes two contending conceptions of the common good in contemporary India. The third section attempts a culturally specific description of the Indian family and its core features – caste endogamy, marriage, and the ways in which the family is propagated and governed, including the division of labour and the representation of gender roles, attributes and expectations within the family. The final section draws upon survey data to speculate on ways in which we might think about the Indian family in relation to the common good in the present, and the relationship between private virtues and public virtues.