Our society is a little ahead from appreciating the idea of having a number of children, or establishing a big family. The old maxim of “let the children spread over the hills” does not hold much essence. People are already aware of the complications of big families, one of which is the economic burden of helping children establish themselves. Unlike the arguments that this is only the result of the growing tendency to materialism in contrast to the more coordination-oriented domestic life, it is the result of awareness and sensibility towards domestic and social responsibilities. Nevertheless, whatever the reasons, people have begun to give preference to small and prosperous families.
As far as happiness with a family is concerned, material prosperity counts a lot these days. Mutual cooperation between members in a big family does contribute to the satisfaction of the individuals and of the family as a whole, but in absence of minimum fulfillment of needs, the satisfaction cannot last long. Often big families are full of bickering in the name of inheritance and share. This does not, however, stop people from having big families. Nor is it the sole reason for the trend of small ones. Big families existed because people did not control births for smaller ones. At times people needed a family with a large size in order to tame the cattle and till the land. This trend resulted in the division of the land into small pieces over a period of time, to such an extent that the pieces did not support the large families. Unnoticeably, pauperization of people is the result of this gradual increase in the families in bad proportion to the carrying capacity of the land.
