Homemakers not idle, their labour helps earning spouse function, says Delhi high court

NEW DELHI: Rejecting the "myth" of an "idle wife", Delhi High Court has stressed that a homemaker's labour enables the earning spouse to function effectively and her contributions cannot be ignored while deciding maintenance, as these don't figure in "bank statements or taxable income".

Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma recently observed that an unemployed wife couldn't be equated with idleness or deliberate dependence. While determining maintenance, the law must recognise not only financial earnings but also the economic value of her contributions to the home and domestic relationship during the subsistence of marriage, Justice Sharma underlined.




"Women who can and are willing to work should be encouraged, but the denial of maintenance on the sole ground that she is capable of earning and should not remain dependent upon her husband was a flawed approach," the court observed.

"Managing a household, caring for children, supporting the family and adjusting one's life around the career and transfers of the earning spouse are all forms of work, even though they are unpaid and often unacknowledged," it pointed out. "These responsibilities do not appear in bank statements or generate taxable income, yet they form the invisible structure on which many families function."

The "assumption that a non-earning spouse is ‘idle' reflects a misunderstanding of domestic contributions. To describe non-employment as idleness is easy; to recognise the labour involved in sustaining a household is far more difficult", the judge pointed out.

A "homemaker does not sit idle; she performs labour that enables the earning spouse to function effectively. To disregard this contribution while adjudicating claims of maintenance would be unrealistic and unjust", the court said, disagreeing with "any view that equates non-employment of a wife with idleness or deliberate dependence on the husband".

The case related to the grant of maintenance to an estranged wife under Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, where a magistrate refused to grant interim maintenance to her on the ground that she was able-bodied and well-educated but chose not to seek employment.

Opposing the claim for maintenance, the husband had argued that the wife couldn't sit "idle" and claim maintenance when she was capable of earning, and that he was meeting the educational expenses of their minor child.

The high court said the capacity to earn and actual earnings were distinct concepts and, as per settled law, mere capacity to earn was not a ground to deny maintenance.

It added that in Indian society, a woman was still expected to give up employment after marriage, but a contrary position was frequently taken by husbands in matrimonial disputes to refuse maintenance to a "well-qualified" wife, the court said.

Such a stand, it added, cannot be encouraged, and the law must ensure that the spouse who invested time, effort and years into building the family was not left economically stranded.

It awarded Rs 50,000 as interim maintenance to the wife, apart from Rs 40,000 per month already being paid to the child by the father. The high court also underlined the importance of mediation as a tool to resolve such matrimonial disputes.