Yesterday, in a Telugu daily, I read that the government is
planning to introduce a bill enabling wife to get 10-20% of husband’s income
into her account. This is supposed to be
part of women empowerment. Woman by choice
or force remains just homemaker and her work is never valued. And such women are said to be dependent and
worthless. In fact, such women are doing
selfless service to the family. Their
efforts are invaluable and always remain undervalued.
A wife, remaining a simple housewife, is rendering services
as Manu said,
1) Servant – taking care of the home and maintaining healthy
and peaceful living conditions
2) Helping husband in his work and guiding him as and when
necessary
3) Cooking and serving food
4) Fulfilling biological needs as companion
In short she is a domestic maid, secretary, cook and
obedient consort. She is even the untold watch dog in the house. As family all
these are unsaid duties of woman. As
family man has duty to provide food and shelter to the woman and protect her. Husband fulfills the needs and if he thinks he
is playing his dutiful role, the family will not have problem. But when he thinks it is his benevolence and
wife, home-maker efforts are worthless the problem arises.
In a family a woman is also a mother. As a mother she has to take care of children,
nurse them, teach them and help them grow into healthy heirs (citizens). A mother is a nurse, governess and teacher. When somebody wants to pay a woman, wife –
mother, they will have to think of all these services she is carrying on in the
family. When every service is accounted
woman deserves the entire earnings of the husband and more. In a healthy family, with good understanding,
the couple will live a happy life sharing financial and social pleasures and
pains. The problem is when man has
addictions, neglects family, ill treats wife and batters children either
physically or emotionally. In such
conditions wife and family is to be supported financially and socially. Then the earnings of the man – husband in the
family is taken into account and appropriate amount is to be deposited into the
account of wife. Just passing the bill
to deposit 10-20% of a man’s income into wife’s account does not fetch any
benefit to the woman. It seems quite ridiculous
as the services of woman are so trivialized.
If the government can implement compulsory education to all
girls up to high school, curbs child marriages and strictly implements anti
dowry law will benefit women a lot better.
The Indian parliament
could not pass the Look Pal bill since 50 years and woman
reservation bill couldn’t tabled for the past 20 years. The formulation of this new bill itself will
be a miracle leave alone the implementation.
In the era of consumerism everything is traded, including mother’s
milk and even motherhood. If somebody
wants to calculate the cost of contribution of a family member, be it the wife,
husband, children or brothers and sisters, it is not the physical work that
should be calculated, but also the emotional baggage that is involved. In a healthy family husband and wife’s income
equally belongs to one another. In a
situation when husband turns wayward, 80% of his income should belong to the
family and the responsible person should get into the account.
To empower woman free education and imparting life skills is
important.
