SEYMOUR, Susan C., WOMEN, FAMILY AND CHILD CARE IN INDIA: A World in Transition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, 323pp., Rs. 595 softcover. The book is an outcome of a meticulous anthropological research spanning a period of three decades in a `rapidly urbanizing and modernizing,' yet backward, region of India. The author's concern is to grasp the cultural and structural dynamics of the families in two areas of Bhubaneswar, the capital city of the State Orissa. Within the family, the focus again falls on the lives of women and children. To the author, India's 'culturally idealized family,' which gives prominence to the collective interests, is male oriented, both in terms of its structure and values and therefore it is patrifocal family structure and ideology. Subordination of personal interests to collective interests of the joint household is manifested in a variety of forms. Selecting 24 Hindu families from a caste-stratified area (Old Town) and from a bureaucratic centre in the city (New Capital), representing 'caste' and 'class' systems of stratification, Susan Seymour compares the two systems of family and child rearing practices. The differences in the systems are quite revealing. In India, patrifocal joint family is in a process of transition and it is found in a number of ways and patterns. Sexual segregation is expressed on several occasions in the life cycle of an Indian, particularly during functions and ceremonies. Gender differentiated roles and responsibilities remain to be a strong principle of the Indian family. Women are still expected to confine themselves to their private life, looking after the children and engaging themselves in domestic chores. Childhood experiences for children in the Old Town are characterized by the reinforcement of interdependence from the early stages of childhood which is inculcated through a number of techniques, namely, the need to rely on a number of persons for care and attention, incipient identification with extended family and the elders being in control of them. The child also learns to relate himself/herself to the hierarchy of others and in the 'case of girls, they get to know about the roles and statuses they have to assume in their life. Motherhood is central to the patrifocal structure and ideology, and girls are brought up to become mothers. At the same time, women in the given ambience form support networks among their friends and kin and they have `clear spheres of responsibility and influence. …