For centuries, mothers have held the fort down while fathers went outside to win the world. But what many have managed to blissfully ignore is the fact that there would be no fort to return to, if a woman did not spend her time, effort and will, working on keeping it functioning.
On Thursday, India's apex judicial body, the Supreme Court finally emphasised the central role played by women within families and society. It ruled that the unpaid domestic work performed by homemakers must be monetised at a minimum of ₹30,000 per month. While calculating compensation for their deaths in road mishaps, it also declared that homemakers deserve to be recognised as nation builders.
In a significant ruling likely to reshape the compensation awards in motor accident cases across the country, a bench of justices Sanjay Karol and N Kotiswar Singh rejected the long-standing judicial practice of equating the notional income of homemakers with the wages of skilled labourers. They held that such an approach failed to capture the true economic and social value of domestic care work.
We have evolved a new principle and laid down that loss of domestic care should be monetised as a minimum of ₹30,000 per month, in addition to all other available avenues under the Supreme Court judgment in the Pranay Sethi case, said Justice Karol while pronouncing the operative part of the judgment.
The ruling came in an appeal arising from a motor accident claim in Punjab where a woman named Reshma died in a road accident in November 2001. Her husband and three children approached the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal seeking compensation. While the tribunal awarded compensation in 2003, the matter remained embroiled in litigation for years, with the Punjab and Haryana High Court deciding the appeal only in December 2024, more than two decades after the accident.
While the country has welcomed the ruling, there are many men who seem to be feeling otherwise. In a post sharing the news on X, numerous users revealed just how important this ruling was with their disappointing remarks.
And who will pay that money to them?? Govt?? asked a man on X. Let your wife hustle & get paid less. Be a homemaker husband & earn 30k added another. if i am supposed pay 5 lakh per annum + food and shelter cost to my wife then like any employer i will: fire her and get a new one or get multiple wives, remove her from all my personal property rights, renegotiate workload and salaries every year or as per contract [TBD] one claimed. Wife is given shelter, grocery, clothing, healthcare etc from husband. Wife has to pay this amount to husband then, said one.
In the current environment in the country, where consent and respect for women are being debated nationally, it seems it is important to dive deep and analyse how the layman is yet to even respect his wife who forms the other half of his home and world.
