Whose money is it anyway?

This morning’s newspaper informs me that the chief judicial magistrate of Gurgaon is being questioned in connection with the murder of his wife. Incidents of spouses killing each other are not new but what shocked me was the report that this young wife was shot because she failed to produce a male heir after giving birth to two girls. Like many such cases, the truth may never come to light but even the possibility that a woman, not an illiterate woman in a remote village in Haryana, but an educated girl in the Millenium City, could be killed just because she could not produce a male child is bizarre.

 

Well, maybe not so bizarre. It seems natural that a man would lovingly tend to a tree that would bear fruit and feed him in the future. It is also natural that if he finds a weed, he would pluck it out before it starts eating up his land. It does seem like good common sense, a sound cultivation practice. If we remove the warm and messy human emotions that are involved in the process, the act of procreation, born out of a contract of marriage, is a cool rational one. At the core, we humans are primed for survival, the instinct for self-preservation overrules everything else. As long as the man is the sole or primary breadwinner, the source, and controller of resources that are needed for survival, parents will continue to hanker for a male child.

 

Looking at this through the lens of simple economics, the male child mania is understandable at a time when women did not work outside the house and the work they did do in the house had no monetary value. But shouldn’t things change when large numbers of women join the workforce and earn their living? If both the girl and boy can avail of opportunities to make money, why should the gender matter so much? Physical strength is no longer a criterion to become an earning member of society. As we grow into a service economy with an increased contribution from the tertiary sector, the opportunities for women to enter the workforce also increase.

 

Here is where it gets bizarre. Even if the woman does earn a living, the returns do not flow back to the original investor. Usually, any money or at least a portion of what a single woman earns is put aside by the parents to pay for her dowry. A married daughter’s earnings are taboo. There are women who do provide some financial support to their parents but they are an exception, not the norm. It is not ‘done’ for any self-respecting parent to accept anything from their married daughter. A quick dipstick survey of the women in my neighborhood revealed that all parents balked at accepting any financial support from their daughters. My mother is not pleased when I insist on paying for her air tickets to visit me. Only a few of the parents of my girlfriends visit them in their married house. Many daughters and the sons-in-law are willing to help out with finances but the parents of daughters would not accept such help unless it is a dire emergency.

 

Imagine investing your life’s savings in a blue-chip stock and then forgoing all claims to the dividend. Foolish! Here is where tradition trumps economics and the law. As per The Married Woman’s Property Act, a woman’s earnings after marriage are separate and she is entitled to use it as she deems fit. But the reality is different. It is expected that the boy will support his parents when they grow old. For this undertaking, he is glorified at birth, pampered and well-nourished as a growing boy and pandered to as a man. In the Ramayana, the young Shravan Kumar, who carries his aged parents around for a pilgrimage, is a hero. A man who abandons his parents is a villain, a social outcast. A girl is expected to give up hers. She is given to her in-laws to do with as they please. There are no expectations from her parents. She will be treated as a ‘guest’ at their homes if she returns. Her earnings are now the property of her in-laws as she herself is. Even in affluent urban households, many in-laws frown upon their bahus giving anything to their parents. His money is his but hers is also their money. A non-working daughter-in-law’s chance to contribute to the economy of her new household is through hard labor or the production of another wage earner. What is perpetrated upon her is perpetuated by her and the sorry saga is repeated in the next generation.

 

It is time to break out of this vicious cycle. I know that many parents in my generation would hate to be dependent on our children – boys or girls – when we grow old. I would like to believe that more people are having children for reasons other than social security. But the numbers are too few, the change too slow. Our economic condition and social infrastructure are not well developed enough for everyone to become altruistic saints and let go of all expectations of monetary support from the children. The solution lies, not with yet another Supreme Court judgment but in the minds of people. If parents can stop looking at a male child as a pension plan, it eases the pressure on the man to become the main breadwinner, to carry the burden of being the sole provider and caretaker. If parents can stop treating a female child as a long-term liability, she can grow up to become an interest-bearing security. She can share the financial load of her new family leading to a larger corpus that can support more people. Even if she doesn’t work outside the home, she contributes as a housekeeper, cook, cleaner, and caregiver for children and elders for which she is entitled to some benefits. If the parents of a girl child have brought her up to be a confident, competent, independent woman, they have earned every rupee she gives them.

 

This article was first published on IBN Live’s blog