World Cultures eJournal

Every family adapts from one generation to another to specific environment in which they live and meet their human needs. In so doing, the couples of the family desire and plan ideal family size and composition and reproduce accordingly. They continue their reproductive behavior until they acquire planned family size. This paper, based on primary data collected from March to October, 2005 including 100 couples chosen by Cluster random sample (70 couples from Muslim community and 30 couples from Santal community), is an attempt to compare and explain family size and composition: ideal, actual, expected and adoption practice between Muslim and Santal communities in rural Bangladesh. Average current age of the study participants was 37.89 for husband and 29.89 for wife of the Muslim sample and 38.39 for husband and 29.04 for wife of the Santal sample. The analyses of independent sample t-tests revealed that there are significant differences in ideal, and expected family size and composition as well as adoption practice, but significant similarities in actual and usual family size and composition between the two communities selected.