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Patriarchy is considered as the defining principle of women's work and family responsibilities in Indian social organization except two matrilineal pockets in the south-west and the north-east India. But a number of social reforms, opportunities of higher education and modern occupations in the cities, and several changes in the values about roles and status of women have contributed toward changing the traditional setting. These have resulted in a paradoxical situation for women as there is conformity towards traditions on the one hand, and conflicts between the imperatives of tradition and modernity on the other. The modernization process greatly affects the urban centers leading to the emergence of new trends having wider implications for the traditions and norms held so far.1 It has also affected the family and kinship system in terms of structure, roles and responsibilities.
In an era of change, it is important to recognize that there are a number of kinship systems in Asian societies. These are classified in three main categories - patrilineal, matrilineal and bilateral. It has been argued that differences in kinship system and family structures account for the critical differences among societies in the way in which the gender principle operates. ( Lindsay, 1994). Therefore, it is important to understand how gender roles are conceived and enacted in the maintenance and reproduction of family organization in any given social system. Sociologically, the composition of a family and its role system are reflectors of the rules of recruitment and residence as well as the normative and actual patterns of rearrangement of family structure in the replacement of one generation by the next.2
The present study is an attempt to undertake an analysis of some aspects of the changing nature of women's work and family responsibilities with special reference to educated working women (daughters) in urban India. The study explores some aspects of the long term implications of changing gender roles in India.
What are the important points which can be underlined on the basis of these diverse case studies about daughter maintained families created as a result of downward social mobility? First of all, it is obvious that the parents were instrumental in engaging the daughters in their survival strategies. Secondly, the daughters came forward for this role due to their sense of 'duty' or obligation for the parents and the family. Thirdly such a setting has been related with circumstantial (and not well considered or voluntary) deferring of marriage of the working daughters. Fourthly, being an economic provider or partner in family management gives such daughters a significant role in decision making. Finally , such women are often found to have mixed feelings about their life journey partly satisfied and happy due to their dutifulness towards the parents, but partly angry and unhappy about increasing 'loneliness' or 'marginality' after the marriage of other siblings. da

Indian Council of Social Science Research.

English