Roles and duties specific to women in Indian households.
Indian societies are full of patriarchal boundaries which deeply deprive women freedom of in the country. An Indian respectable female actress commented on the issue.
“Within a family since childhood, you are being told that you are not welcome. a lot of girls face it. I face it too. but I never got stopped due to this. When a woman wants something she doesn’t stop” Ratna Pathak Shah.
Women’s freedom is never really taken seriously in our country. First, a female child is the responsibility of their parents and family. Second, she becomes responsible for her husband and in-laws.
In all of these events, a female is never really a boss of her own or a responsibility of her own; she is someone who’s always being taken care of as a ‘responsibility’.
The question arises: who gave society the authority to think that women can’t take their own responsibility? Why is she always termed as weak and who is marking them weak?
All the answers live in the mindset that everyone holds when a girl child is born. For ages, This has been the practice where girls are the housekeeper and men are breadwinners and it is still a part of everyone’s life.
When a girl child is born the only responsibility the parents think of is her marriage, according to society the only place a girl can live freely is the house of her in-laws or her husband.
According to society, one can live freely in a stranger’s house after getting married to them and working for them as a housekeeper and there she goes, she has her freedom.
This misconception ends when the in-laws start treating the newlywed wife as a commodity or housekeeper and a separate part of the family in most cases, the reality is revealed just by the way they treat a new family member who is unaware of the environment.
The role of wives according to our ancient system is all about taking care of husbands, children-in-law, and the whole house. but this isn’t just ancient practice this is also practiced in present Indian households.
If a woman is working then she is responsible for coming to the house, taking care of the kids and the whole house, and even making food for all the family members, but when the man comes back to the house he is just expected to relax and put zero effort into the household chores as he must be tired.
If the wife gives birth to a child that doesn’t mean that taking care of that child is just her responsibility if working or not in any scenario, why is there so much stigma around men helping at home?
Men from the beginning have been assigned more muscular roles by society than women and that’s why they are chosen for the job of breadwinners.
But now we often observe a lot of women working equally as men after so many years of struggle but still, the system thinks that it is just a woman’s duty to be involved in household chores.
Just a few households in India are practicing everything equally in their house where both men and women are taking care of their jobs and the household duties equally.
stigmas related to roles assigned in Indian households to everyone in the family should be at one point in time broken because these sigmas are creating a lot of pressure.
Especially for women who are expected to do both work and household chores without a helping hand and if she is not balancing it out properly. The woman is expected to leave her job/career as her first duty in society puts is to be at home and take care of the household duties.
No gender should be forced to fulfill duties that they don’t feel comfortable with.
Read more: Women’s condition today compared to the Mythical Era: Ramayana and Mahabharata
Also read: Supreme Court: A healthy Man should even provide with physical labour to his wife, children
