House wives and work

There is positive appeal in the feminine role model as reflected in the mother image. Because marriage is an imperative for women, the fear of remaining single acts as a negative force, impelling women to marry. Dharmasastra writers consider the father a hundred times more venerable than the teacher, but the mother is held a thousand times more venerable than the father. The mother figure of tradition encompasses the image of teacher of courage, sacrifice and morality as well as the abstract concept of all embracing motherhood. Mother Earth, Mother Country etc. The mother provides the most potent model for the individual women, a model which may well give her the ability to withstand adversity or change better than do men.

By tradition and by law the housewife is not taken to be a productive worker in the economic sense of the term. The reward she gets in exchange of the services she renders is not economic, rather is not expected to be economic. She is supposed to find and seek her own reward in psychological and emotional terms that is, satisfaction that the other members of the household are satisfied through her. In other words, her reward is vicarious.

However, the economist would point out that she paid for her services in real terms in terms of goods and services. And this payment through access to goods and services in return for house work is considered a determinant of her status in her family. It also determines her sense of independence within the family and the society at large, and finally in her planning of the family budget. On other hand, while she does not have to pay any tax to the government, she does not enjoy retirement benefits and is not entitled to superannuation, pension, and so on. She does not have any old age support in her old age, when she becomes incapable of work, is based on the emotional relationship she has developed with the members of her family.