Though the demand that the housewife should be paid for domestic work is not new and was first raised in the modern period in 1970s in the United Kingdom and subsequently in the United States and other western countries yet in India noted Tamil cine-star Kamal Haasan, the founder of newly formed political party, Makkal Needhi Maiam, in December last year said that if his party comes to power in Tamil Nadu it would pay salary to housewives for the unpaid work they do at home.
It was soon welcomed by Congress MP, Dr Shashi Tharoor, who had even worked as the Under Secretary General of the United Nations.
Then came up a data from International Labour Organisation, which many people may accept with a pinch of salt.
According to these statistics, the women of Iraq spend the highest number of time (345 minutes) on domestic work while that of Taiwan the lowest (168 minutes) daily. In India, according the National Statistical Office September 2020 report, women spend 299 minutes daily while men only 97 minutes.
Internationally, men on an average spend 83 minutes daily on unpaid domestic work while the women 265 minutes – that is more than three times.
The problem with these figures is that they vary in different studies as different yardsticks are applied to measure it. This causes some confusion.
However, the moot question is who would pay the wage or salary – or whatever name one wants to give. Obviously, the husband because in this era of crass capitalism the governments across the world are not even in the position to provide jobs, pay pension, and give decent salary to the employees. Let Kamal Haasan first solve the problem of unemployment in Tamil Nadu before embarking on this ambitious plan. As job creation is a serious and difficult challenge – though it benefits men, women, children, and elderly—most political parties indulge in populist announcements to woo voters. Such moves not only have negative impact on social fabric, but are not good for the economy as well.
But in a country where an overwhelming percentage of population live below the poverty line and lead a hand to mouth existence, how practical the whole idea is. Even in big cities a large number of labours earn as less as Rs. 5,000 a month. Why not make the earning of the bread-winner so substantial that the husband (who generally plays this role) does not have problem in running the family, whose most important member is the wife.
Fixed wage or salary is paid only by the employer who runs any business or earns some money. If any industry runs sick, it does not care about its employees and throw them out. Sometimes the government comes to bail them out.
Ironically, nowadays even the government is unable to run industries and pay salaries to its employees. It is in disinvestment mode.
Another question is: Can a family be run like a corporate house or industry where there is absolutely no scope for humanness and any touch of sympathy? The concept of Hire and Fire, Golden Handshake, Voluntary Retirement Scheme, etc. have become the order of the day.
The West has tried and experimented several ideas to save the disintegration of families but has ended up burning its finger. The husband-wife relationship cannot just be monetised and is based in human values. True, many husbands mistreat their wives and indulge in all sorts of crimes. They kick their wives out of their house at the drop of a hat.
Several governments have made strict laws in this regard but to little avail. Perhaps in the absence of any moral teaching, incidents of domestic violence have increased. In the lower income group poverty is the main factor behind domestic quarrel though the middle class usually refuses to accept it. But this is not the case in higher income group.
Curiously, the Islamic law mandates husbands to pay wife if they decide to breast-feed their children. It also entitles wife to spend certain portions of husband’s money without his consent. But Islam does not talk in isolation but calls for establishing a society where the husband or the bread-winner gets enough money to run the family decently.
To check the rampant cases of divorce, the Western society came up with the idea of payment of maintenance. But it did not work at all as the rate of divorce continues to rise. Islam too talks about the payment of alimony till the iddat period.
Luxembourg with 87 per cent has the highest divorce rate to be followed by Spain 65, France 55, Russia 51, the United States 46, Germany 44, New Zealand and the United Kingdom both 42 and Australia and Canada both 38 per cent. Thus, the permanent payment of maintenance to divorced wives didn’t check the number of cases.
Now the crafty and cunning men have come up with fantastic idea of live-in relationship. In this case a man establishes relationship with a woman or girl without ever marrying her. After sometimes, if the relationship does not work, the man simply abandons his partner. In such a situation there is no burden of the payment of maintenance. Thus, the number of abandoned women has increased manifold in the society in the last few decades.
The advent of Industrial Revolution gradually destroyed the concept of joint family, which had its merits and demerits too. In many cases the idea of nuclear family may be good, but this does not give anyone a licence to paint the joint family in the blackest of colours. After all it was the need of the hour in some societies in the past. Today in the era of live-in relationship even the nuclear family is facing a serious threat to its existence.
Suppose, the idea of paying the salary to housewife by the government is accepted then another problem would arise. As to what should be the salary. Should only a woman be paid for working four or five hours at home. Or should they also charge for giving birth to the children and rearing them up. Should the concept of surrogate mother be adopted in the case of real mother.
What if the wife is a working woman as is quite common these days and hardly spends any time in the household work. In many cases now the role has reversed as many husbands have lost their jobs in the middle of their career.
In the age of Robot and Artificial Intelligence when, it is feared, that an overwhelming percentage of people may not get any job, how will this formula apply.