Abstract: This essay examines family development and change within the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), more popularly known as the Hare Krishna movement. It focuses on the demise of communalism in ISKCON’s North American communities and the emergence of the nuclear family as the foundation of ISKCON’s socioreligious world. As ISKCON became a householders’ movement, collective forms of involvement gave way to growing privatization. At the same time, ISKCON parents challenged traditional sources of religious authority in favor of more democratic and bureaucratic structures. By the 1990s, ISKCON’s previous sectarian structure and lifestyle had become secularized in North America.

Keywords: International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Hare Krishna, householders, communalism, nuclear family,