Part 3.3 - Family life of ancient India according to the Jātakas

The unity of society was, as it has been till the present day, the family, which comprised patriarch, his wife, his unmarried daughters and his sons with their wives and children. In the house hold, the patriarch was the head and master with absolute authority; his wife was the mistress but dependent on, and obedient to, the master. Children were naturally happy corner of the household. Prayers for getting children were not uncommon. On the birth of a child, neighbours and relatives came with offering to the parents of the new born child. There was a day fixed for naming the child (nāmagahaṇadivasa). Names were usually formed after those of the ancestors or from the mother’s or the father’s side. 

Family customs were clearly discussed in the Kaṭṭhahāri Jātaka (No. 7) and Uddālaka Jātaka (No. 487). The Soṇa Nanda Jātaka (No. 532) deals beautifully with the relation of parents and child. The Vessantara Jātaka (No. 547) is also a noble and sublime representation of that parental love, that precious bond between parent and child which is self-evident. The relation between brothers and sisters was also, as a rule, happy. In the Maṃsa Jātaka (No. 315) indicates that sisters surely are love towards their brothers. The joint-family system was, in those times, it seems, free from the vices that attend it at the present time. 

S.V. Venkateswara opined—

“But India aimed at the sublimation of the institution of the family with a deliberately conceived social and political purpose.”^[1]

Footnotes and references:

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[1]:

Indian Culture through the Ages, Vol. II, S.V. Venkateswara, p.280.