Give women real rights
The saying goes that a woman’s work is never done. How then is it possible to put a price on such invaluable and selfless work so that husbands could pay a monthly salary to their homemaker-wives? This novel concept, articulated in several countries worldwide, including in most-populous China, has even moved up a notch in India with Union women and child development minister Krishna Tirath proposing to pilot a bill making such cash payments mandatory.
The suggestion may well sound noble and desirable in principle, even though its implementation might prove to be extremely difficult. But beyond that, wouldn’t such categorisation of a “paid” wife take humanity back to the days when a wife was seen as chattel? Some men who are chauvinistic enough to treat their spouses as second-class citizens might only be too pleased to formalise such a relationship: paying up and giving their “better half” a status almost like domestic help!
It is of course true that homemakers need recognition for the vital work they perform in households, that has gone traditionally unnoticed — more so in our country in which women are yet to be truly emancipated as in some more evolved societies. To bestow equal status on them in terms of property rights should be the bigger priority in this nation as most of our personal laws don’t give women equal weightage in inheritance.
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