‘A wife who does not earn money is not sitting idle, it is wrong to ignore her hard work’, comments Delhi High Court.
Delhi High Court has said that a wife who does not earn money is not sitting idle. Rejecting the notion of a wife sitting idle at home, the court said that a housewife’s hard work increases her husband’s efficiency. According to the court, the wife enables her husband to work effectively through her hard work. Along with this, the court made it clear that it is unjust to ignore his contribution while determining the amount of maintenance.
Justice Swarn Kanta Sharma observed that the wife not being in employment cannot be equated with idleness or willful dependency and while determining maintenance the law should recognize not only the financial income but also the economic value of her contribution to the household and domestic relations during the existence of the marriage.
Court gave order on 16th February
“It is easy to term not being employed as sitting idle, but it is much more difficult to recognize the labor involved in running and maintaining a household,” the high court said in its order passed on February 16. The bench said, “A housewife does not sit idle, she does such labor so that the earning husband can work effectively. It would be unrealistic and unjust to ignore this contribution while deciding maintenance claims. Therefore, this Court cannot agree with any view which equates the wife not being in employment as idle or willful dependence on the husband.”
Magistrate court did not give maintenance allowance
The High Court made these observations while considering the case of granting maintenance to an estranged wife under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act. The magistrate court had refused to grant interim maintenance to the woman, saying that she was physically healthy and educated, but had chosen not to take up a job. The appellate court also did not give any relief to the wife. The parties to the case were married in 2012 and it is alleged that the husband had abandoned the wife and their minor son in 2020. The husband had argued in the High Court that the wife cannot sit idle and demand maintenance when she is capable of earning and is bearing the expenses of the education of their minor child.
Earning potential and actual earnings are different
The court said that earning capacity and actual earnings are different concepts and as per settled law, earning capacity alone is not a ground for denying maintenance. “Women who can and are willing to work should be encouraged, but denying maintenance merely on the ground that she is capable of earning and should not be dependent on her husband is a flawed approach,” the court said.
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