Reviewed Study on Changing Values of Female Youth

INTRODUCTION

It is important to know about the target group with which the present study is concerned. This is not only a scientific requirement of the study but also focuses on the characteristics of youth. It provides much background information that helps in the designing of the study and find out the actual results. In fact, youth hood is an age duration that is a glorious span of time. This time duration varies from society to society. In majority of the societies, the age duration between 18 to 40 years is considered most suitable. According to a UNESCO report a person who is 11 or 12 years old, recently arrived from a rural setting and struggling for survival is not a youth. But an educated, 30- or 35-years old person, depending on his parents for a livelihood is still a youth. According to this report, some other characteristics of youth hood include rural/urban scenario, access to education, gender of the person i.e. male/female, language group, burden of physical, mental or emotional hardships etc. Certain Biological factors are also considered responsible for the status of youth. Age in traditional societies is a sign of wisdom and an accumulation of experience, based on the past activities. This gives status to the aged people. But in modern societies, advance age in itself is of less value. Modern industry is the burning example of such incidents. Otherwise, youth hood is an age group when people feel strong, vigorous and sexually mature. This physical prowess provides an adult status of the youth. The adolescents find themselves fully qualified for the status of youth after the required substantial preparations related to employment. In least developed societies, this needs the knowledge of common language, traditions, myths, rules of social life and procuring food. In traditional societies it is acquired within the family and kinship groups. In case of modern societies, entering into an occupation or any profession attains the status of youth hood. According to D. Paul Chaudhary youth population in India constitutes one third of the total population. He has identified six major categories for the classification of youth: i. Rural, Tribal and Urban youth ii. Student and Nonstudent Youth iii. Employed and Unemployed Youth iv. Affluent and Economically Poor youth v. Industrial and Urban Youth and vi. Male and Female Youth.

youth are fond of honors, victory and superiority. They are charitable in most of the cases rather than profit oriented. They are trustful and may be deceived. They do not like principles and are bashful. Their nature is universal and has remained constant through the ages. The Sociological point of view accepts youth in a broader perspective, as they are the inseparable part of all the sub systems of society. They are capable of bearing the hardcore responsibilities without which every society feels paralyzed and incapable. Studies cover various aspects and dimensions of youth activities. In Anthropology youth have a distinct role and responsibilities in their respective societies. They are the part of wider social structure and perform accordingly. In tribal societies age is the basis of all these demarcations and cultural learning. Studies conducted on different tribal groups inform about it.

In this study of value change among youth, we are mainly concerned with the female youth. They are the part of wider field of women studies and constitute about half of the youth population. By this way, they deserve proper weightage like the male youth. But unfortunately, they are under assessed. Their ability is not recognized adequately. There are various reasons behind this social inequality including, the sex segregation, culture, outside attacks and invasions. Such injustices in the past have put women behind the veil and influenced their wellbeing. But we cannot keep aside the contribution of female youth in the maintenance of rural and domestic economy. They have worked hard on the agricultural fields including the major physical activities like, cleaning and separating the food grains, collecting the fuel and fodder, weeding, fetching water, transportation of agricultural products. The rural cottage industry is a major area of operation for female youth. They develop many artifacts there. They prepare jute rope; design the baskets, stitching and carving etc. Animal husbandry is also looked after by the female youth. They milk the animals and feed them from time to time. They are doing these repetitive jobs for the last hundreds of years. In this long duration they have never demanded social status equal to the male members of the society. Indian society is grateful for this contribution of female youth. Otherwise, there are a few examples in the history when elite women earned name and fame by the decisive and brave deeds. Mention may be made of Jodha Bai, wife of great emperor Akbar, Laxmi Bai who challenged the British Empire 6 etc. Many of the female youth have performed as poets, painters and novelists for the development of society. Beauty among female youth

A life with social status is the desire of everybody. Unfortunately, women in the society suffer from lower social status. Traditional values have not provided them status equivalent to their male partners. In its stronger and more specific meaning, it refers to a form of social stratification in which the social positions are ranked and organized by legal, political and cultural criteria into status groups. There are many versions of this approach to status. For example, the legal theorist Sir Henry Maine argued that we conceptualize the history of western society in terms of a transition from status to contract. Max Weber adopted a similar historical view of the relationships between classes and status groups in his famous remarks on Power.

Marriage is the most important event in the life of youth that constitutes an institution like family. Young boys and girls after learning the functions of family start dreaming about it. They begin to look at the opposites for the planning of best future. Marriage itself is a value and considered better than a live-in-relationship. It is a universal institution that controls and regulates sexual life of humans. Growth and development of youth depends on the support of family. It is a primary source of moral and ethical values. By the help of these values marriage becomes a system of roles that both husband and wife perform in the family. According to Ram Ahuja1, the Hindu Marriage has undergone many changes in its objectives and purpose of life. i. The Hindu young men and women today marry not very much for performing religious duties but for companionship. ii. Now marital relations are no longer treated as unbreakable as divorce is permissible. iii. The ideal of pativrata has lost its significance for there is a legal provision for widow remarriage and divorce.

In Indian society, it was never in practice up to the middle of 1950s as there was no provision for divorce in Hindu Law. It is a different thing that among some cases, the local customs provided sanctions for the dissolution of marriage by payment of some amount. Now there are legal provisions for divorce. But still it is a last option to end marriage, otherwise both husband and wife

concern over rising divorce rates has frequently reached the status of a moral panic, and it is often stated that, given the continuation of current rates, over one in three marriages contracted will end in divorce. Divorce is a most modern notion for the structural breakup of marriage. In many cases it is associated with the desertion. Desertion means irresponsible departure from the home and leave the family in dark. Divorce is a tragedy in most of the cases, as rejected mate feels suffered.10 Some of the following studies from prominent scholars discuss it in the light of value-based issues

There are many injustices taking place against women in most of the societies. Violence is one of them. It is a physical force used against women in different ways including torture, bride burning, rape, kidnapping, eve-teasing, bigamy, abduction, wife battering, adultery, frauds at the time of marriage. Value discrimination is the major cause of it. Women are under-assessed as the part of lower strata of society. According to Kalpana Sharma11 , sex detection and sex selective abortions are today spreading like an infectious disease, from the rich to the poor, from the upper castes to the Scheduled castes and even to the Scheduled tribes. While in 1991, the child sex ratio for STs was 985 (against a national average of 945), in 2001 it had fallen to 973. And among, SCs, the figures were 946 in 1991 and 938 in 2001.

Socialization is concerned with the process of learning. In this process a person learns throughout the life. But among youth this process works effectively. Youth need to learn a lot about social norms, customs and traditions. Family members provide great help in this regard. By this process youth prepare themselves to participate in the wider society. Family performs as an agent and dictates the social laws. Emotional conditioning also takes place in this process. Personality is also reformed by the socialization. Children learn many parts of the culture by this process. It is a process by which we learn to become members of society, both by internalizing the norms and values of society, and also by learning to perform our social roles (as worker, friend, citizen, and so forth). The psychological perspective of Freud views view socialization as working against our natural inclinations and drives as against the functional perspective that sees socialization as essential for the integration of the society. Recent studies have focused on social class differences in socialization,

Youth is an age category that is not enough mature and pass through the process of learning. In this duration what they learn is usually different from the other age group people in the society. Apart from this they go to the institution of learning for the formal education. All these sources and experience make them different from other sections of society in terms of culture. Youth themselves have common tastes, choices and desires. By this way, homogeneity in culture develops among youth.

Deviance among youth is considered as a general problem. Because of improper socialization and poor family background many of the youth do not follow the social norms. They are found to be involved in different types of crimes like killing or murder for cash money, snatching gold chains from women, stealing cars and motor cycles and the smuggle of goods from one place to another states and cities. They use drugs and alcohol for intoxication. Youth imbibe such bad practices from cinema, novels and other means of communication. Increasing urbanization and industrialization are also found responsible for the growth of such antisocial activities. The unemployed youth are lured for the time to time income. Indian society is suffering from these problems for the last so many years. Value based education and proper political leadership can solve this in the interest of the society and future citizens. Studies conducted by different scholars highlight these issues.

Activism among youth is a worldwide phenomenon. It exists in most of the societies and

modernization. These youth not only support political leaders but invite other youths to participate and achieve the noble objectives in social life. Almost all the developed and developing democratic nations have been supported by the youth power for the purpose of progress and eradication of poverty. Mention may be made of England, United States of America, France, Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Prague Tokyo, Cuba, Nepal, Peking etc. Most traditional Muslim countries of Middle East, at present, are also engaged in this steer.

Value difference between two generations becomes the cause of conflict. This is a universal phenomenon. Level of adjustment decides the quality of relations in different societies. This difference reflects in the behaviour and responses of the people. The process of socialization regulates the behavioral issues. In many cases, arrogant behaviour of the youth is not liked by the senior members of the society. Youth generation becomes the prey of insult. They are usually criticized for their new ideas and decisions. Old generation finds difficult to understand the youth of the society. Early philosophers like Plato. Socrates and Aristotle also thought about the behaviour of youth. As per their observation‘s youth love luxury, have bad manners, and disrespect the older generation. They contradict their parents, gobble up food and tyrannize their teachers. Plato experienced this conflict in the sphere of politics also as a basic mechanism of change, as a dis-equilibrating factor in system of government and the prime agent in the alternation of political forms discussed in Social Welfare, December 1968. This value difference exists even today and attracts the attention of many scholars. Studies conducted in different societies report about it.

Values are socially approved desires or goals that are internalized through the process of conditioning and socialization. They generate subjective preferences, standards and aspirations. Value helps man in orienting his desires and goals in a set pattern. According to Radha Kamal Mukherjee, the distinction between values and measurable facts is false. Values and valuations can be verified and validated in the social process. It is borne by three postulates18: i. First, values play an important role in the integration and c impulses and desires in a stable and consistent manner. ii. Secondly, values are generic in scope and re made up of both individual and social iii. Thirdly, despite the diversity and divergence of values of different people and cultures, some universal values are discernible.

Modern women love to work and make a career, as it provides them self-dependence and status in the society. This present feature of female youth is a recent development. Situation in this regard, in the past, was quiet different. It was not respectable for women to go outside and earn livelihood for themselves and family. Among high caste women, it was shameful and even derogatory in many pockets of the affluent social sector. Rural lower caste female youth have been engaged in the agricultural activities in the form of supporting hand but the male members of the family did heavy jobs. Female were assigned in ancillary activities like fetching of fodder, cleaning the grains, feeding the cattle‘s and weeding the crops. No issue of status was involved in this task. Female youth performed this responsibility for a long time in the past history of India.

Ek Tandurusty Hazar is an old saying in the Indian society. This means consciousness for health is not a new thing. In olden days also, people were doing different activities to maintain good health like jogging, morning walk, wrestling etc. Indian Medicine system 'Ayurveda' has also provided a number of guidelines to maintain good health. It also includes what to eat, how to eat and when to eat. Indian society observes different weathers in years. Therefore, different food items are prepared in these hot, cold and rainy weathers. Aged people adopt a different time schedule for the maintenance of their health. These values regarding health are growing with the time. Modern medicine system and mass media have provided a lot of help in this regard. Many health researches and studies are being published in

regarding the health are presented here.

Sports is the most liked area of youth. They enjoy and make career in sports. Youth feel enthusiastic when they deal in sports activities. Youth participate in games since the ancient times. The early games in India were Gulli-Danda, Kabaddi, Kushti, Kho-Kho etc. These games have occupied an important place in the indigenous society. After the arrival of British, many new games also came with them like Cricket, Hockey, Football, Basketball etc. Sports develop personality and makes youth strong. Sports also improve health of the youth. They feel fresh after the exercise of games in the evening.

Development of modern real estate in the form of group housing and malls and its association with social values is a recent development. Now a days, it is going on by acquiring huge lands from farmers and other land holders. Because of this practice, the aerable land near to the cities is getting short and many cities in India are taking the form of metropolitan towns. Although formation of castles with beautiful gardens is an age-old idea and it was confined up to the elite class. For general masses, it was a thing of far distance. The developers of these huge buildings express an overall concern with the social status of purchaser. These domestic villas and commercial outlets follow the norms of vastu since the time of designing. The builders have all the reasons to satisfy their customers and adopt all the favorable policies. These residential vicinities earn the fame by its name and decide the social status of the concerned person living in the group habitat. The status of the colony also decides the market price of the real estate. Although in the newly developed colonies the price is usually customer oriented.

As a result of concerted efforts, enrolment at all levels of education has generally improved for girls and young women, and the gender gap in schooling has been reduced in most parts of the Meerut city. Nevertheless, the gap remains wide at many places, and gender based stereotyping and discrimination continue to affect educational attainment. Many individual young women who have completed higher levels of education have increased their earning potential a positive outcome of the narrowing of the gender gap in education. There is still ample evidence, however, that many women do not receive the same remuneration for work that is equal to that of their male colleagues. The universal human rights principles adopted by the international community This constitutes an impressive recognition of the contribution in an interesting research setting that this study makes. It is in this context that the contribution of this study can be examined and analyzed.

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