What are the attitudes about family in the culture(s) you are studying? How are families organized? Is the family evolving? How are these attitudes reflected in the language?
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I think Indian culture places a higher priority on family than what I am used to in the United States. The idea of a cohesive nuclear family, with a mother, father, and kids living together until the kids are married, is much more important in India, whereas different types of families have become "normal" in American culture. For instance, while I was in India, I never met anyone who openly discussed having step-parents or divorced parents, and when I would describe my family (raised by a single mom and my grandparents), I would often get very interested looks. I think marriage is still much more cherished in Indian culture, and although divorce is becoming more common, it is still rare to remarry. I also saw that children tend to stay at home longer than most Americans I know, often living at home during "university" and even until marriage.
Another aspect of family that I noticed while in India was the tradition of taking in elderly family members. My host-mom's elderly mother didn't have a home or live in a retirement facility. Instead, she spent one-third of each year with one of her three daughters, traveling to the next daughter's home every 4 months. This seemed to be the norm, and when she came to stay with us halfway through the semester, she occupied the living room on a mattress and took over the daily cooking. I also noticed that there were very few retirement homes in Hyderabad, meaning that this must be commonplace. I really liked this viewpoint of family in Indian culture because it provided what seemed to be a close, secure, and protective family unit.
In Korea, family and marriage are regarded as the most important things for everyone. More specifically, family is supposed to be fairly large. Unlike the typical American families, which mostly consist of two generations, many Korean families have four generations living together. The well-being of one’s marriage and the whole family is the ultimate goal of many people. Many parents make decisions for children’s marriages according to the family backgrounds. Things like divorce would definitely ruin the reputation of the whole family.
Interestingly, there is an obvious hierarchy among family members. Father is usually considered the core of the family who is responsible for earning money and making big decisions. The elder people are, the more respect they receive. The respect could be reflected on the language people use. People seldom refer to each other by first names. For example, older brother is called older brother(oppa), grandmother is called grandmother(halmeoni).
Korean people value family a lot. Grandparents have the major power and then comes to father and mother. Like Henry said, In Korean families, the father is expected to provide financial support, and the mothers need to take care of home and children. The large emphasis on the family member is reflected in different names for relatives on mother and father sides. For example, aunt at mom side is "Imo" and at dad side is "gomo". In Korean, even yonger and older sisters need to be differentiated. For older sister, it is " Unni". For younger sister, it is "Yeodongsang".
Korean families are very unilateral. Also, since Koreans are more collectivist rather than individualistic, there is a major emphasis on family coming first. Families are organized in that the father is the leader of the household. Next comes the mother. From here, age and gender is what matters. Basically the power shifts from the eldest to the youngest and from male to female. In Korean families, the father is expected to support the family while the mother takes care of the home and children. Right now, there is actually a shift in the custom. Korean birthrates are at an all-time low, with a huge focus on careers for many individuals. Thus, less and less mothers are expected to be stay-at-home mothers. They can in fact have a career. These attitudes are reflected through having some vocabulary focused on gender. The fact that males are a higher priority in Korean culture is reflected through the language and culture through various gestures such as bowing and specific words used for elders. For example, Koreans don't simply say "brother". There is "elder brother" and "younger brother".