The ‘rule of law’ is not always productive; in certain situations, it can be counter-productive. One such instance could be the Government mulling enactment of a law to make husbands pay a salary to their home-maker spouses.

An association of men, in a counter-attempt to ‘save the family’, has already responded to the Government stating such a law is unnecessary.

Disintegration of family

I wrote about the home-maker’s contribution in these columns, “Home-maker or bread-winner?” ( Business Line , July 20, 2012). I sought to draw attention to the true potential of home-makers in contributing through savings in costs to the economy, in addition to non-financial contributions, contrary to the thinking that women enjoy their right only through economic freedom, by being career-oriented. For those who think thus, being a home-maker is to be devoid of rights, and inter-dependence with other family members is equated to slavery of sorts.

The heightened individualism promoted by the West has resulted in large-scale disintegration of family as an informal institution, robbed society of human emotions, led to hyper-active consumerism, and immersed society and the government in a debt-trap. The result is destruction of both the family and the economy.

People in countries where family values matter save and spend within their means, contributing to both dependent family members and to the government by their savings. In India, in particular, the private life is functional and dynamic not because of the government, but in spite of it.

The new law providing for salary for home-makers has recognised ‘women right’ within the family while ignoring the inter-dependence that sustains the very foundation of family for collective good. What if the children or spouse demand money compensation from elders within the family for taking care of them at a later stage in their lives?

Take the example of law providing for easy exit from marriage by making divorce easy. The last two decades have seen a rising number of false ‘dowry harassment’ cases.

a price on inter-dependence?

Law cannot create the family, but can destroy it. As lawyers, we are taught and trained not to have emotions, because law does not know emotion. But the family is built and sustained on the edifice of mutual trust to navigate the rough and smooth of life, retaining mutual confidence.

Members within the family may compensate more than what is required, which may not be with legal precision contained in a contract or statute, but good enough to hold and sustain the overall networking, which directly reduces the social security costs to government.

One expression of inter-dependence and mutuality of trust is the sacrifice of all members (housewife included), at varied points in time, in return for taking care of each other at infancy and old age.

Interference in the name of law to provide for such services by pecuniary means alone ignores selfless service. It does not recognise the mutual adjustments of members within a family which naturally occurs by their trust and inter-dependence. Such interdependence, give and take, happens to humans not only in the family but outside too, be it professional or business life.

An attempt to provide a legal route to assert individual right also ignores the custom and culture of India and to that extent the government continues to ape the West, an exercise that may cost the economy dear.

The larger question is, is there any requirement for law-makers to enact law that is an imposition in personal life?

(The author is an advocate and a fellow member of ICAI)

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