THE INDO-TRINIDADIAN FAMILY IN TRANSITION:
HISTORICAL AND CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES

Simboonath Singh

Introduction

There is wide agreement by social scientists that the radically different social and economic regimen experienced by the indentured Indians of the Caribbean had modified their preindenture patterns of behaviour. Colonial transplantations have undoubtedly had a profound impact on the social organization of overseas Indians. To be sure, as people moved from the Old World to the New, they, out of necessity, become more innovative in response to their new environment, and changes are more dramatic than thitherto. One institution that has undergone fundamental changes to its original structure is the family. By tracing the development of the Indian family system prior to the arrival of Indians in Trinidad to its subsequent establishment in Trinidadian society, it would become clear that the original (i.e. early indenture) Indian family structure underwent significant transformations as a result of changed social, cultural, environmental, and economic factors.

While not denying that the contemporary Indo-Trinidadian family has retained some elements of ancient forms (e.g., religion), it has, nonetheless, undergone important changes that depart radically from its early indenture form. This paper contends that the demise of the traditional Indian family system in Trinidad can be attributed to particular processes operating within Caribbean/West Indian societies, namely, creolization and widespread industrialization and urbanization. These changes have resulted in the emergence of a new and distinct diasporic Indo-Caribbean familial structure. The contemporary Indo-Trinidadian family, therefore, has become a primary marker of a separate Indo-Caribbean ethnic identity.

Social Change in the Diasporic Context

International migration has occurred throughout the history of all nations, and this has resulted in the emergence of many contemporary plural societies. The study of the "Indian Diaspora" is emerging as an important field of sociological investigation. Sociologically, the term diaspora refers to the migration and settlement of a group of people that carries with it a socio-cultural baggage. This baggage may persist with, or be retained by them in varying degrees. It may undergo changes by way of adaptation to the host country's socio-economic and political conditions, and/or through adoption of the host country's socio-cultural values and practices. Normally, people of the diaspora may revive and reconstitute particular aspects of their cultural and ancestral heritage. The revival of cultural traditions by the diasporic community will depend on a number of factors: (i) the conditions under which its members or their ancestors left the homeland; (ii) the distance which the diasporic community is now located in relation to the homeland; (iii) the duration of settlement in the host country; and (iv) the economic and political conditions in the host country (Jayaram, 1995:4).

The migration of Indians to the Caribbean has been referred to as the "colonial" or "indentured" labour phase (see Gosine, Motwani and Motwani 1993). Under an organized system of recruitment incentives directed by the British colonial state, the system of Indian indenture involved the importation of Indians to the Caribbean, Africa, Mauritius, and Fiji in the nineteenth century to work on the sugar plantations left abandoned by African slaves due to the abolition of slavery. Between the 1830s and the 1910s, approximately 1,120,000 Indians were transported to different parts of the globe as indentured labourers (Beechert, Lal, and Munro 1993). In 1987, an estimated 8.7 million people of South Asian origin were living outside of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka (Clarke et al., 1990). Indo-Caribbeans represent more than twenty per cent of the Caribbean's nearly five million English-speaking population (Thakur, 1989). According to the 1990 Population and Housing Census, the people of Indian descents constituted the single largest ethnic group in Trinidad comprising 40.3 per cent of the entire population (Central Statistical Office, 1994:xiv).

Social, cultural, and economic factors are important to the study of change and accommodation. Of primary importance are the conditions faced by the indentured immigrants once they had completed their indenture. Indian indentureship in the Caribbean was a system of contractual labour wherein the indentured immigrants were contracted to work for a five year period after which they were entitled to a free return passage to India. The majority of Indians in Trinidad chose to settle there as a result of the granting of Crown Lands by the colonial administration. This government incentive enabled Indians to acquire land legitimately (Ramesar 1976). Although migration and indenture exerted a powerful force on Indian social organization, it is the structure values, interethnic group relations, and the policies of the host society (following indenture) that have had the most common and pervasive consequences for the social organization of overseas Indian communities, and for the persistence and change of Indian institutions in the new environment (Jayawardena, 1968:449).

Undoubtedly, then, the transplantation of Indians to the Caribbean has resulted in the development of several distinct differences from the "Mother country" (i.e. India). That is to say, changes to traditional patterns of Indian social organization have not only been limited to the deterioration of the ancestral language and the caste system, they have also had a profound impact on the family. Some of the changes to the traditional Indian family structure include the rise of new family forms, patterns of marriage, and attitudes toward divorce. These are some of the changes that have contributed to the breakdown of the traditional Indian family system in Trinidad and, which, for the purposes of this paper, will require some discussion and analysis.

Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Research

There currently exists a very small body of sociological research on the Indo-Trinidadian family system in contemporary Trinidad. What is available is a few studies from the 1960s and 1970s on Indo-Caribbean social and familial organizations. Notwithstanding their outdated statuses, these studies continue to be seen as seminal works primarily because of their pioneering contributions to the area of the sociology of the Indian diaspora (See Klass 1961; Niehoff and Niehoff 1960; Schwartz 1965). More recent studies (most of them from the 1980s) have been limited to the issues of social change, economic organization, social mobility, and familial organization among rural Indo-Trinidadians (See Nevadomsky 1984; Nevadomsky 1982). Most of the above mentioned studies have utilized two competing theoretical perspectives for conceptualizing the dynamics of family change in the Indo-Trinidadian community. These are the Systemic Model and the Acculturation Approach.

Because of their emphasis on processes of social and cultural change and their impact on Indo-Trinidadian familial organization, both the systemic and creolization models are the most satisfactory and adequate perspectives for understanding the types of transformations that the Indo-Trinidadian family have undergone. In comparison, the acculturation model, with its overemphasis on cultural persistence, is incapable of addressing issues related to social change in the context of family organization.

The Acculturation Model

Like the plural society model (See Furnivall 1948), the acculturation perspective is one that is based on social and cultural segmentation. That is, it freezes the various categories in time during their "first moments of existence" (Hoetink 1967). Both the plural society and the acculturation approaches take this historical classification, and by converting it into a contemporary social fact, virtually denies the possibility of change and incorporation. The acculturation model, also referred to as the "retentionist hypothesis" (retentionist because of its emphasis on cultural survival and retention), minimizes the significance of the impact on Indian social organization by plantation life and the larger society. Emphasis is instead placed on the historic/ancestral culture of Indo-Trinidadians, and the role of rural isolation and agricultural production in maintaining it (Nevadomsky 1982). The resettlement of post-indenture Indo-Trinidadians in rural villages is said to have effectively isolated them from mainstream culture and to have imposed, strong, continuing restraints on the processes of penetration, acculturation, and incorporation.

Farming, for example, is said to have contributed to the persistence of such institutions as the extended/joint family system, and a marriage system consisting of such holdovers from the past (i.e. ancestral Indian) culture such as child marriages, parental mate selection, and caste endogamy. Under rural farming conditions, Indo-Trinidadian social structure was reconstituted along lines remarkably similar to village life in India, and it supposedly exhibited the same kind of functional integration, for instance, in the relationship between caste and marriage, agriculture and family organization, inheritance patterns, and paternal authority (Nevadomsky, 1982:111). These assumptions may have been true during the initial entry into Trinidadian society, but contemporary Indo-Trinidadian family organization does not lend itself to phenomena such as child marriages, or the perpetuation of caste endogamy through marriage. From a plantation-dominated society Trinidad has become increasingly industrialized and creolized, and there is little doubt that these transformations have altered the traditional integrity of the early Indian family system in Trinidad.

Morton Klass, in his book East Indians in Trinidad: A Study in Cultural Persistence (1961), argued that the Indian village structure (as it was in India) remained intact in Trinidad, even after the post-indenture period. While it is true that caste endogamy was in fact prevalent in Trinidad up until the early forties, by the mid-fifties such practices were already become non-existent. Klass suggested that attitudes to work and family remain firmly rooted in historical cultural patterns, thus confirming Indian interests and activities to the rural environment. Such generalizations, however, have been derived by often regarding all members of a particular group as having identical and usually immutable social and economic characteristics.

What Klass ignored in his research was the impact that processes such as deculturation and creolization had on the traditional Indian family structure in Trinidad. Developments in Trinidad's economy accelerated the deculturation and creolization processes which, in turn, resulted in a rapid urbanization and industrialization (MacDonald 1986). Consequently, many rural Indo-Trinidadians started leaving their villages and began moving into suburban and urban areas where practices such as caste endogamy, child marriages, and arranged marriages faded into near oblivion (Nevadomsky 1984). This movement from rural to urban may have contributed to the steady rise in nuclear family forms in the Indo-Trinidadian community.

While Klass's study has contributed to the sociological and anthropological understanding of the maintenance and modification of Indian cultural patterns in Trinidad, its main drawback lies in its lack of emphasis on wider developments in the society such as the rise of new elites, the emergence of party politics, the internalization of creole values, and rapid industrialization and urbanization - all of which impacted on the structure of the Indo-Trinidadian family. Klass's case for retention is based on the existence in the post-indenture period of the relatively "static" and predominantly agricultural villages that grew up on the fringes of the sugar estates (Nevadomsky 1984). According to Steward (1970), little attention is given to the kinds of "dependency relationships"that exist between local units and the larger society that gradually initiate internal transformation and social change.

By focusing on the subjective conditions of village life - traditions, customs, beliefs, and ritual practices - Klass and others neglected the objective conditions of social change such as the movement of Indo-Trinidadians into new occupational and educational roles, and the consequences of these changes on social structure. This prompted Nevadomsky (1982) to rightly point out that "too many references to the antecedent culture have the unfortunate consequences of neglecting evidence which may be more germane to an understanding of local organization" (Nevadomsky, 1982:113). For Nevadomsky, then, Klass's thesis of cultural persistence, a la the acculturation model, should be abandoned.

Similarly, other studies carried out by Sebastien (1980) and Niehoff and Niehoff (1960) have tended to place a timeless artificiality in their analysis of the data. Sebastien (1980), for example, argued that Indo-Trinidadians became entrenched in agriculture and, as a result, were removed from urban industry. It is often claimed that overseas Indian communities are usually characterized as ethnic enclaves made up of farmers and sugar cane labourers who are largely isolated from developments in the wider society. Sebastien's study endorses this perspective. Sebastien concluded that this type of ethnic occupational segregation led to an unequal participation between Afro and Indo-Trinidadians in the main spheres of the national economy,and that it resulted in an emphatic racial/ethnic division of labour, creating the urbanization of one and the ruralization of the other (Sebastien 1980).

What Sebastien ignored was the significant transformations that were occurring in the rural areas of Trinidad in the late 1960s and early 1970s. One such change was the gradual transformation of rural villages into semi-urban areas as a result of rapid economic development. In other words, Sebastien and others overlooked the visible evidence of the economic and social transformations, and their impact on the Indo-Trinidadian family structure.

The Systemic and Creolization Models

In its application to multi-ethnic Caribbean societies, the systemic model describes the processes by which various ethnic and cultural categories in society are gradually integrated into an overall social system. Societies such as Trinidad, Guyana, and Surinam, all of which have large contingents of people of Indian origin, are not composed of a series of static units in fixed relation to each other, but are dynamic systems in which there has been continuous movement both geographically and occupationally (Smith 1970). Structurally, there has been the increasing involvement over time of all cultural sections in all spheres of the social system. Culturally, the structural and institutional changes in these societies have led some like Braithwaite (1975; 1974) and Smith (1970) to assume that these societies are characterized by normative integration, stemming from an increasing commitment by all groups to a common set of values. This consensualist assumption with its functionalist underpinnings has long been considered untenable (Kuper and Smith 1971; Smith 1965). Given their institutional diversity, it is difficult to conceive of Trinidad and Guyana as being characterized by "shared values" or a "common value system". M.G. Smith (1960) went so far as to say that as an ethnic group in the Caribbean, Indo-Caribbeans had so little in common with other groups that social change could only take place by violent means (Smith 1960). In comparison to Smith's pessimistic assessment, R.T. Smith (1967) argued that there was a level of similarity in aspirations to ensure that differences would be accommodated without recourse to violence (Smith 1967). Unlike M.G. Smith, Braithwaite (1971) recognized that the coincidence of class and colour changed during the 1950s, as more and more Afro and Indo Trinidadians, through the emergence of a more "open" society and access to higher education, became part of the dominant class.

There is little doubt that Indo-Caribbeans today share with other groups some of the dominant societal values. Present conditions in the Caribbean do not provide the structural autonomy necessary for the maintenance of completely distinctive life styles and value systems. Nevadomsky (1982) research on Indo-Trinidadian social organization supports the above contention: "in a society like Trinidad the Indians by and large identify with the dominant material and ideal symbols and participate in the prevalent patterns of prestige, aspirations, and consumption" (Nevadomsky, 1982:102).

The adequacy of the systemic model is best seen in the way it handles issues of social change and cultural pluralism. Within this framework, Indo-Caribbeans are recognized as having a distinctive "ethnic culture"consisting of some values and customs peculiar to them (e.g., religion). However, the trend over time has been towards the gradual shedding and/or modification of these values, or as Nevadomsky put it: "the revitalization of certain `traditional' customs as incorporation proceeds" (Nevadomsky, 1982:102). This conception of the revitalization and reconstruction of traditional cultural forms and practices has parallels with a socio-cultural phenomenon operative in Caribbean societies, namely, creolization.

The dislocating effects which indenture and colonialism had on Indian social organization in the Caribbean cannot be doubted. However, other processes operating within Caribbean societies were also responsible for the modification of the indentured Indians home (i.e. India) culture. One such process is creolization. Stuart Hall (1977) argues that in the diaspora the most profound alternative process of cultural identification to colonial hegemony is creolization (Hall 1977). This process began with slave-plantation experience and after the abolition of slavery, it also embraced the system of indentureship in countries where significant numbers of Indians were incorporated into colonial economies (e.g., Trinidad, Guyana, and Surinam).

Defining "creole culture" can be a daunting task. Initially, the word "creole" was used in the Caribbean to refer to the offsprings of European parentage, who were either born or raised in the colonies (Allahar, 1994:125). Others such as Braithwaite (1971) have defined creole in a way which seems to accurately capture what it actually is. He refers to it as "a committed settler, one identified with the area of settlement, one native to the settlement though not ancestrally indigenous to it" (Braithwaite, 1971:xiv-xv). All ethnic groups in Caribbean societies, including Indo-Caribbeans, have all been absorbed into the wider creole reality. In other words, creolization involves the elimination of particular aspects of an indigenous culture, and the simultaneous adoption of new cultural norms in specific host contexts. In Trinidad, for example, the impact of creolization has been the strongest in that the Indo-Trinidadian community has encountered strong forces pulling it toward assimilation into the cultural mainstream (Allahar 1994). One institution that has been affected by the creolization process is the Indo-Trinidadian family.

The Indo-Trinidian Family: From Indentured to the Present

The original Indian family has been described as a "patrilocal joint family" in which a line of brothers, their wives, and children live in a common household compound with the men's fathers as patriarch. It is marked by a frequent coresidence of nuclear families related along filial or fraternal lines, and by a strong patriarchal system with the seclusion of women (Davids 1964). The joint/extended family is usually composed of three or more generations, living together in the same house, cooking in the same kitchen, owning property in common, and pooling their incomes for common spending (Adhin 1961). In India, the family was a corporate unit jointly holding title to land, which was the general marker of wealth. The father was more or less the household head, but it was the brothers who ran the affairs of the family property (Bell 1970). The extended family structure is characterized by parental selection of mates, the transmission of property to male members within the family, the rarity of divorce, and the subjugation of women.

The indentured Indians, from their initial entry into Trinidad (1845) up until the 1880s and 1890s, grew up with a different set of family relationships from which their parents had experienced. Most of the Indians during this period were plantation residents and experienced fluid family patterns. Between the 1890s and 1940s, the extended family was more or less the norm in villages and among peasant Indians including the majority of landowning Indo-Trinidadian families. After the 1940s and 1950s there was a steady decline in the extended family form (Ali 1995).

The move to Trinidad resulted in a new set of rules by which the structure of relative domination within and among families had to be arranged. First, members of joint/extended families were separated in the estate barracks where the indentured Indians were initially lodged. No provision was made for the behaviour patterns appropriate to the indentured immigrants society of origin, and by the very nature of barrack life there was minimal opportunity for exercising traditional customs and practices (Klass 1961). Where the family did exist, plantation conditions conflicted with normal Indian family and other behaviour patterns and expectations. The disparity between the numbers of men and women, for example, created conditions conducive to change.

Because men greatly outnumbered women throughout the indenture period, the joint family system could not be maintained and began to fade. The disproportion of the sexes, non-recognition of customary marriages, erosion of traditional restraints and marriage customs, produced conditions that led to the demise of the extended family. As a result of the disparity between the sexes, many of the indentured Indians entered into common-law unions which could easily be terminated. Indian religious marriage ceremonies were not recognized by civil authorities until well after the indenture period had ended. Islamic marriages, for example, were declared legal in 1936, but Hindu ceremonies remained outside the law until 1946 (Niehoff and Niehoff 1960). This legal double standard probably had the effect of weakening the traditional bonds of marriage since a discontented husband could very easily abandon a woman who was not really a "wife" in the eyes of the law.

Similarly, inter-caste marriage and cohabitation were unavoidable because of the scarcity of women. Lack of land and other forms of property, and the independent wage-earning capacity of women and sons, evidently curtailed the authority of Indian males (Jayawardena 1963). Consequently, the structure of domestic units was under the direct jurisdiction of the plantation manager rather than under the control of the male household heads. The housing arrangement in the estate barracks also kept people close to each other irrespective of caste backgrounds. Although the majority of indentured Indians came from the lower agricultural castes, many were also members of higher castes such as Brahmins and Kshatriyas (mainly Rajputs). As the indentured Indians settled into villages and attempted to establish themselves, strict caste restrictions were gradually broken down virtually irreparably (Reddock 1986). Though not as frequent as inter-caste marriage, unions also occurred between Muslims and Hindus (Ibid) ).

Therefore, the prevalence of inter-caste interactions as a result of living conditions and the experience of passage may have created the conditions for the initial transformations of one of the fundamental cornerstone of Hinduism, namely, caste arrangements. The crossing of the "kaala pani", or the conditions arising out of the experience of passage itself, resulted in profound changes to the traditional Indian family system. In India, for example, social relationships were dominated by the patrilineal system. In a single village in India, the people were largely from the same "gotra", and potential marriage partners were sought from outside. In the Caribbean, however, this system gave way to a new system, namely, jahajibhai/jahajibahin or ship brotherhood/sisterhood. Many of the indentured Indians did not come from the same village, and this led to the development of solidarity as experienced in communal life. Thus, it is conceivable that the breakdown of caste barriers, in some ways, radically transformed particular spheres of Indian social and cultural life in the Caribbean. In his research on Indo-Trinidadian social organization, Nevadomsky (1982) found that in some areas of community life the cultural content is perhaps traditional (e.g., religion), but the organizational form is "new" (i.e. the erosion of caste and the declining authority of the household head in the extended family (Nevadomsky, 1982:114). Given the circumstances of indentureship and plantation life, it was difficult for the indentured Indians to maintain the joint/extended family system as was known in India. Although a few specific features of this system remained in tact, mainly in rural areas (e.g., the authority of the father, and a system of extensive kinship), today, however, the extended family has become almost extinct in Trinidad.

The increasing shift from the extended family form to the nuclear family can be attributed to a number of factors operating in Trinidadian society. One such factor is the Indo-Trinidadian bride's growing awareness of her subjugation and exploitation as bahu (daughter-in-law). Many Indo-Trinidadian women, as wives and mothers have, historically, been oppressed by their mothers-in-law. In Trinidad, the Indo-Trinidadian bride was property, and thus needed to be abused in order to make clear that her in-laws possessed her completely - a situation aptly referred to as "sexual politics". The Indo-Trinidadian bride's desire to achieve autonomy may indicate her desire to break with traditional patterns of male dominance. Thus, the desire by the Indo-Trinidadian bride for marital stability (i.e. away from the powers of her mother-in-law) and independence may have also contributed to the rise in nuclear family forms.

This emphasis on nuclear families supports Schwartz's (1965) assumption that the nuclear family household is the group best adapted to the socio-economic conditions present in Trinidadian society, and only under particular conditions is the extended family household possible as an effective unit. Many Indo-Trinidadians have made increasing use of education as a vehicle for social mobility. People involved in "modern" jobs outside of the sugar industry tend to establish neolocal, nuclear family residences while maintaining ties to the wider family.

Typically, most Indo-Trinidadian families preferred to have their married sons and wives live at home with them. They built extra rooms to accommodate them. However, the current trend is for young couples to live on their own, earning and managing their own family budgets. This movement away from the sharing of residence with parents has resulted in the emergence of nuclear family homes. It is no longer a disgrace for newly-wed couples to find their own home. One possible reason for the adoption of autonomous living (i.e., living in a nuclear family situation involving just parents and children) may have to do with education. Thus, the typical western criteria of status - education, occupation, and income - by and large, now form the basis of the Indo-Trinidadian attitude toward education.

Another factor responsible for the demise of the traditional extended family system in Trinidad can be attributed to widespread industrialization and urbanization. The rapid expansion of the economy produced high rates of urbanization and suburbanization which may have, to some extent, outmoded the traditional extended family system. The emergence of a profitable oil export economy in Trinidad significantly changed the island's economic structure - one that was based on a plantation economy to one based on an export-oriented industrial economy. Research by Angrosino (1977) indicate that the most significant concomitant of family styles in Trinidad is socioeconomic. Angrosino's study points to the impact that changes to income had on the changes to the traditional Indo-Trinidadian family structure.

This type of economic development, coupled with the adoption of "creole values", also resulted in attitudinal changes toward divorce. Traditional Hindu thought was definitely against divorce, especially for females. Hinduism advocated that women should not marry more than once even after their marriage partners died. Muslim women, on the other hand, had opportunities for separation since Islam permitted divorce. During the period 1870-1940s, Hindu women in Trinidad had no access to divorce (Ali 1995). Today, however, divorce among Indo-Trinidadians is becoming more and more common place.

Structural and cultural factors such as those previously discussed gave rise to other changes in the Indo-Trinidadian family. The gradual decline in arranged marriages among Indo-Trinidadians is a case in point. During the early indenture period arranged marriages were probably the cultural ideal and statistical norm (Nevadomsky 1980). Increasing educational opportunities and wide scale urbanization undoubtedly led to changes in attitudes towards arranged marriages. From the 1940s, marriages were not parentally arranged, and Indo-Trinidadian women increasingly opted for their own selection of a spouse. By the 1950s, most Indo-Trinidadian parents, including village parents, conceded to personal choice as the best method of mate selection.

First, it was a situation where neither the bride nor the groom saw each other until the day of the wedding. This situation was later modified so that the couple would arrange to meet each other, and would then indicate to their parents if they agreed to marry. Then there arose another modification - one involving a system of arranged courtship. In this situation the prospective bridegroom would visit a few times and shortly after marriage plans would be finalized. Since the 1970s to the present, the situation has become almost entirely courtship. Many Indo-Trinidadian parents try to pass on their religion and culture to succeeding generations, and expect the same from their children's choices in marriage (Deen 1995). Today, arranged marriages are usually frowned upon by the younger generation of Indo-Trinidadians. The norm is for individual choice with parental approval (Jha 1973).

Particular aspects of marriage customs associated with Indian weddings were also re-adapted in Trinidad. For example, in northern India (where the majority of indentured Indians came from) the payment of dowry was a common practice. However, in nineteen century Trinidad, the system of dowry has become extinct. The giving of gifts to both the dulaha (bridegroom) and dulahin (bride) is the accepted practice today.

Changes have also occurred in the area of wedding rituals and practices. No longer is the "muhurta" (the time when a Hindu marriage is most propitious) seen as important. It has been replaced by a particular day most suited to merriment i.e. Sundays (Jha 1985). Also, the traditional attire worn by Indo-Trinidadian brides has undergone some changes. For example, it was customary for the Hindu bride to wear a yellow sari, then a red sari followed by a white sari. With increasing westernization, Hindu brides are now wearing both the traditional sari as well as the white wedding gown typical of western/Christian weddings.

But, inspite of these transformations and modifications, Indo-Trinidadian marriages continue to have the full force of moral and social authority behind them. Indeed, the "Indian" character of the wedding ceremony has become one of the principal markers of a distinct Indo-Trinidadian ethnic identity. An Indo-Trinidadian marriage symbolizes participation in Indian culture. As Jha (1973) argued: "the importance of the wedding feast by both Hindus and Muslims in Trinidad is critical to an understanding of cultural preservation and pride (Jha, 1973:44).

Implications of the Changes of Family Styles

According to Mandelbaum (1970), the Indian family even in India has traditionally been flexible enough to adapt to changing social and economic conditions. Indo-Trinidadians, like many immigrant groups elsewhere, entered Trinidad with their own distinctive language,behaviour, beliefs and, at least initially, the social and legal restrictions placed on them were severe. But with the abolition of the indenture system, and the accelerations of economic and political changes in the wake of the Second World War, the last vestiges of official discrimination in Trinidad disappeared. Universal adult suffrage and the demise of the colonial era thrust Indo-Trinidadians into the political arena, and though this nearly gave rise to a "race war", it signalled Indo-Trinidadian social and political integration to the wider society on a massive scale (Ryan 1972).

Through formal education and occupational change, many Indo-Trinidadians are presently achieving clear and unambiguous gains in social and economic mobility. The post-indenture period and its attendant social, economic, and political developments brought with it some radical transformations in Trinidadian society that impacted strongly on the social structure of the Indo-Trinidadian family. Rapid industrialization, widespread urbanization, and the internalization of creole values have all contributed to the demise of the early indenture family form in Trinidad. The predominant familial structure in Trinidad today is the nuclear family system. Changes in income structures and the rise of a significant Indo-Trinidadian middle class may be responsible for the prevalence of nuclear families in the Indo-Trinidadian community. The value system of the nuclear family form is different from the extended family. Whereas the former is based on individual autonomy, the latter is based on collective principles of organization. The rise of nuclear families, therefore, has implications for changes in family lifestyles, values, and aspirations.

Equally important, too, is the impact that American culture has had on Indo-Trinidadian culture. The oil boom of the 1970s brought with it prosperity and a high degree of materialism - one that is similar to the North American patterns of consumption. The wide scale acceptance of western material values as a result of "modernization", coupled with the highly creolized orientation of the Indo-Trinidadian, have resulted in the growing acceptance of western values and attitudes toward the family, marriage, and divorce.

Conclusion

The new indentured Indian immigrant to Trinidad was culturally and psychologically estranged, and the ways of India gave way to more practical considerations. In Trinidad, several distinct differences from the "Mother Country" (i.e. India) has emerged. The indentured Indians left India with an ideal family structure based upon the extended/joint family system. Under the pressures of plantation life, many aspects of this traditional family system, such as arranged marriages, caste arrangements related to marriage, and the paternal dominance, could not be replicated.

Scholars like Klass (1961) and Niehoff and Niehoff (1960), who have looked at the position of Indians in the Caribbean diaspora, either from the perspective of compartmentalized cultures and sub-societies, or from the viewpoint of cultural conservatism, have unfortunately imposed a timeless artificiality in their analyses of the Indo-Trinidadian family. Aspects of traditional Indian culture in overseas communities have undergone significant changes due to structural, political, and cultural factors. Thus, arranged marriages, caste endogamy, attitudes toward divorce, and familial structures have all been fundamentally transformed resulting in the establishment of a reconstructed family system very similar to the Western model.

Therefore, to view the Indo-Trinidadian family as a collection of quaint customs lovingly preserved for over one hundred and fifty years, is a sentimental distortion of the current situation. The contemporary Indo-Trinidadian family is in no way similar to the Indo-Trinidadian family of the mid-nineteenth century. As an institution, it has changed over time to meet the needs of life in Trinidad.

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