A homemaker performs a multi-dexterous job round-the-clock and without any holiday. She is expected to have managerial skills, culinary penchant and a knowledge of accounts and economics too. A woman taking care of a home also performs the job of a home doctor by providing basic medical support to family members. Therefore, her contributions cannot be discounted as valueless, the Madras High Court has said.
Justice Krishnan Ramasamy held that a homemaker would be entitled to an equal share in properties purchased by her husband with his earnings, because he could not have earned the money without the support of his wife in looking after the family. “The property may have been purchased either in the name of husband or wife, nevertheless, it must be considered to have been purchased with money saved by their joint efforts,” he wrote.
He went on to state: “When the husband and wife are treated as two wheels of a family cart, then the contribution made either by the husband by earning or the wife by serving and looking after the family and children, would be for the welfare of the family and both are entitled equally to whatever they earned by their joint effort. The proper presumption is that the beneficial interest belongs to them jointly.”
