Should Housewives in India be Paid a Salary?

The Feminine Presence: Part I

W hen Indias Minister for Women and Child Development, Krishna Tirath recently proposed a bill that would require husbands to legally compensate their wives for house work, she probably had the best intentions in mind. She is quoted in the Indian media as having said, The socially accepted behaviour (of women doing household chores) becomes a tragedy when a woman gets divorced or widowed and she is left with nothing for survival. While it does make sense that women with no income of their own must be well provided for by their husbands, does this need to be mandated by law?

Ever since the news of this bill was reported, it has faced criticism from several quarters of the Indian society, women included. An article in a popular online newspaper questioned how one could put a price tag on household work. Does she get paid extra for cooking up an elaborate birthday dinner, as opposed to dishing up the usual dal chawal? Activist Maya John provides a different solution in her opinion piece in The Hindu, Instead of asking a man to pay his wife for her domestic work, the state must create jobs for women outside the home in order to truly empower them. When the topic was brought forward during Sadhgurus Darshan at the Isha Yoga Center, he was quick to provide his insights on the issue. Below is an excerpt from his talk. Sadhguru: The most basic structure of the social unit is the family. Fortunately so far, the government has had the wisdom to stay away, keep their hands off the family, because they know they will mess it up. But it looks like now they want to enter your family in the guise of giving justice to women. You need to understand one thing, if a woman is paid for the chores that she does at home, she can also be fired. No divorce is needed. She is not cooking properly, fire her tomorrow morning. The next day you can hire somebody else. The sanctity of what it means to be a family will disappear. Not just the husband, even the children will ask, Well, you are being paid, why are you not doing this? The sanctity of being a wife, the sanctity of being a mother, the sanctity of being a feminine presence in the family, all this will be ruined and she will be reduced to a paid-for maid. The worst possible vocabulary could be used in this scenario. It is nobodys business to enter a family and say how it should be run. The laws are on the street and not inside ones home. That is a place where nobody should meddle except the people who live there.

In todays society, it has been observed that the title of housewife is inadvertently less valued than that of a working woman. Will the mere payment of a salary elevate the role of the housewife and make it more worthy of social recognition? Stay tuned for answers to these questions and more through Sadhgurus words, in the concluding part of the series: The Feminine Presence, next week.

The Feminine Presence: Part II

L ast week, we saw what Sadhguru had to say about housewives being paid a salary by their husbands. Today, in the concluding part of The Feminine Presence, we take a deeper look at the role of the feminine in the home as well as society, through Sadhgurus words. Sadhguru:

Lets look at this fundamentally. During the time of the caveman, men took care of food and shelter, the basic survival process. Women took care of cooking, nurturing and creating a better ambience for life. So the man fuelled the survival process and the woman fuelled that which makes living worthwhile. Without the womans contribution, when a caveman got up in the morning he would wonder, Should I go out hunting today? Because he had a wife and a child, there was a reason for him to go out and do something. These are the two aspects fulfilled by masculine and feminine. From here on, when I say masculine and feminine, I want you to disengage these from being male and female. The natural tendency of the masculine is outgoing, it wants to take care of the survival process, it wants to take care of somebody. It doesnt feel fulfilled unless it takes care of something. The natural tendency of the feminine is not like that; the feminine is absorbing, it creates an ambience of a certain beauty, love and gentleness. There is a shift in todays society. A woman may seek a career, but it is not just about that anymore. In todays society, masculine ideals are becoming the most important. The tendencies of the masculine have become universal. Only masculine is power, or the right way to be, is a wrong perception that has seeped into society. Even women have started to understand it this way. So should a woman not be the caretaker? Yes, she can. But if the feminine was absent from the world, everybody would wonder, Why are we here? We would all be very successful, we would have a lot of food, a lot of money, but we would wonder, Why are we here? Im not talking about male or female, Im talking about masculine and feminine qualities. Feminine is not weak; it is just fulfilling a different aspect of life

A systematic obliteration of the feminine has happened in recent times. One of the reasons is that the world is driven by the economic engine. When economy becomes the only important thing on the planet, the survival process is automatically being put into a divine position. The masculine is bound to be dominant and in this system, women will suffer. Women will be mauled, not by a stranger. You may make laws for their protection, but the very system will maul them. I think a lot of women are going through this and some of them are trying to find a balance between the two. The conflict is not happening because they are pursuing a career, but because the survival process has become the ideal. This is fundamentally a wrong way to structure a society. If aesthetics, love, music, dance, art and craft were as important as money, business and the stock market, you would see that the feminine would naturally play a significant role in the world. Unfortunately, today there is very little role for the feminine. Even if a woman comes out of the house, she has to act like a man and only then she is successful. If she acts like a woman, she is considered weak. We need to see that feminine is not weak; it is just fulfilling a different aspect of life. Without that aspect, life is not complete. The day feminine is completely banished from this planet, life will not seem worth living anymore in spite of every convenience. Without the ambience of the feminine, masculine will feel meaningless. Right now, a woman is trying to fit into the mans world; this is not a good thing. She should not fit into a mans world. Half the world should anyway be hers. Rather than trying to create a mans world and fit a woman into it, which would twist her out of shape, it is

best that we understand what is needed a society where both masculine and feminine have equal roles to play. For that, our values of what is important in life have to change and our minds need to grow beyond the survival process. If spirituality became the most significant part of society, you would see that the feminine would be more dominant than the masculine.