Joint Family, 1900-47 Bharati Ray In the early twentieth century the joint family structure among the middle class in Bengal was undergoing change. This was also a period when because of the several factors, women's ideas and actual life situations were also undergoing change. However, confined to their homes, their strategies had to be played out in the context of patriarchal as well as colonial constraints; their rivalries reflected the internal contradictions of a patrilineal system that depended on them for survival and yet devalued them.
