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Unit 9: Status of Women

Economic Laws Notes
The issues pertaining to economic laws include: right to property or inheritance, equal wages, working
conditions, maternity benefits, and job security. The right to property of a woman refers to her right
as a daughter, as a wife, as a widow, and as a mother. According to the Hindu Succession Act, 1956,
not only a daughter is given a right in her father’s property equal to her brothers, but a widow also
gets a share in her deceased husband’s property equal to her sons and daughters. The legislation has
also removed the distinction between stridhan and non-stridhan.
As regards the equal wages, the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 does not permit wage discrimination
between male and female workers. The legislation prescribes penalties for those employers who
disobey the rules.
The working conditions during employment are governed by the Factory Act, 1948. Besides including
provisions dealing with working hours, weekly rest, standards of cleanliness, ventilation, temperature,
fencing of machinery, first-aid facilities, and rest rooms, the legislation provides for the establishing
of creches for children (if the factory employs thirty or more women), separate toilets for females and
lays down a maximum work of nine hours in a day for women and no employment of women
between 10:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m.
Political Rights

The two important rights in the political field sanctioned to women by the Indian Constitution are:
female enfranchisement and eligibility for the legislature. The demand for women’s suffrage was
first made in 1917 but was rejected by the Southborough Franchise Committee in 1918. In 1919, the
government permitted the states to enact their own laws for granting franchise to women. Such laws
were enacted by Rajkot in 1923, Travancore and Cochin in 1924, Madras and Uttar Pradesh in 1925,
Punjab and Assam in 1926, and Bihar and Orissa in 1929 (Jane Matson, 1971: 108-110). The Government
of India Act, 1935 granted female enfranchisement on the basis of educational qualifications.
Sub-sequently, fifty-six women entered the legislatures in the 1937 elections. After the independence,
the number of women voters and women’s representatives in assemblies and parliament has increased
sufficiently.
Consciousness of Rights
Though women in India have more rights than women of other countries, but are our women conscious
of all these rights? Do they actually enjoy these rights? This author conducted a study a few years ago
in eight villages of a district in Rajasthan among 753 women belonging to 18-50 years age-group. The
main object of the study was to assess the degree of awareness and measure the level of satisfaction
among women of rights sanctioned by the Constitution and the various laws (see Ahuja, 1992). The
conceptual model conceived for this research as-sured that the level of awareness of rights by a
woman in a specific domain (economic, social, political or religious) is dependent on four things: her
individual background (educational level, aspiration level, and personal needs), her social environment
(including expectations of kins, husband’s values and family members’ perceptions), her subjective
perception (of her status and roles), and her economic base (that is, level of class-membership). Our
analysis pointed out the following facts pertaining 10 the awareness of varied types of rights and the
level of satisfaction with the enjoyment of rights.
Consciousness of Social Rights
• Awareness of the marriage laws among women is very low. Only about one-tenth women in
our survey were aware of the right to choose their own life-partners, about one-fiftieth were
aware of the correct legal age for marriage, little less than one-fifth were aware of the right to
divorce, little less than one-tenth were aware of legal stipulation of getting alimony after divorce,
less than one-fifth were aware of the legal right of widows to remarry, and little less than one-
fifth were aware of the dowry law. Taking all the aspects together, it could be said that only
about one-tenth women have some awareness of the marriage laws.
• Women play a marginal role in decision-making in the family. Consultation with wife by
husband exists only in insignificant areas of domestic life.

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