Summary of this article
Supreme Court recognises unpaid domestic work economic value in compensation cases.
Judgment highlights gap between death valuation and divorce property rights recognition.
Calls for matrimonial property rights acknowledging women’s unpaid caregiving contributions during marriage.
By Prof Sheetal Shinde, Assistant Professor of Law at BITS Law School
The calculation of the economic value of unpaid domestic and care work (UDCW) performed by a married woman in her domestic capacity has been an often-repeated subject of judicial interpretation in India. Over the last six decades, Indian courts have taken progressive steps to acknowledge the contributions of homemakers to the family setup. Recently, in Shishu Pal@ Shish Ram v Surjeet (2026), the Supreme Court reaffirmed this commitment, underscoring the need to assign an economic value to the UDCW performed by a married woman. In this decade-old motor vehicle accident case, the Court held that the economic loss due to the death of a homemaker needs to be calculated on three parameters: the homemaker’s contribution towards efficient management of the household, affective loss suffered by children, and loss of consortium suffered by the spouse.
The Court brought all three parameters under the umbrella of “loss of domestic care,” and set a figure of 30,000 rupees per month, with a 10% increase every 3 years, as the UDCW for a homemaker. This is indeed a laudable judgment wherein the Court established tortious liability on the system to compensate for the loss. Yet the judgment raises an uncomfortable question. If unpaid domestic work can be monetised when a homemaker dies, why is the same contribution rarely recognised when a marriage ends in divorce?
The law confronts the value of unpaid domestic work at two crucial moments in a woman's life: death and divorce. For a married woman, death and divorce share a significant common feature. Despite their obvious differences, in both events there is a loss of companionship, support and shared life that constitute consortium. Whereas the valuation of UDCW in death cases is somewhat standardised after the Shishu Pal judgment, it is not even a matter of discussion in divorce cases. Of course, there has been a lot of progress in the divorce jurisprudence, too, such as maintenance provisions no longer being considered a guardrail against vagrancy and destitution, but rather an appropriate safety valve for the separated woman to retain a respectable lifestyle, as well as to compensate for any prospective loss suffered by the woman. For example, in Rajnesh v Neha (2021) and Kiran Jyote Maine v Anish Pramod Patel (2024), the Supreme Court considered the applicant’s educational and professional qualifications, employment history, and any sacrifices made in terms of career opportunities due to family responsibilities as critical factors in assessing their potential for achieving self-sufficiency and chief determinants of calculating maintenance. However, the underlying rationale behind awarding maintenance largely overlooks the UDCW performed by a divorced woman during her domesticity.
The second and third parameters discussed in the Shishu Pal case are equally applicable to divorced women, too, particularly when she does not get remarried. Do maintenance laws factor in the compensation for the loss of consortium? To give a very innocuous example, during the course of conjugal life, the spouses often acquire assets through a combination of economic contribution, mostly by the husband and unpaid domestic labour by the wife. While the husband’s contribution is readily visible in financial records, the wife’s contribution through household management and caregiving often remains legally invisible. In the event of a divorce, how can the wife’s contribution to the assets be quantified? Though there is no straightforward answer, recognition of UDCW for women in divorce cases would mean moving beyond maintenance and a right of residence to a holistic property right, also known as the matrimonial property right. Maintenance merely compensates for need and future support. Matrimonial property, however, recognises past contribution. The distinction is crucial. A woman may not require maintenance because she is employed, yet she may still have contributed substantially to the acquisition and preservation of marital assets through years of unpaid domestic and caregiving work.
A right to matrimonial property would stem from both the status of being a wife and the recognition of the UDCW that almost every woman in a marriage is likely to perform. It would be a property right, not just a maintenance right or a usufructuary right over the matrimonial home. Indian matrimonial household functions through an asymmetric distribution of economic power.
No matter how much women worked at home or how essential their efforts were to their families, their household work was often seen as an act of love and care rather than a contribution with economic value. As a result, the family’s financial well-being is largely attributed to the husband’s paid employment, while the wife’s unpaid domestic labour goes unrecognised. Any money she receives is often viewed as coming from her husband rather than as a rightful share earned through her own contribution to the household.
There can be three ways a household economic transaction can happen from the wage-earning husband to the domestic money-spending wife: (i) as a payment, which means a level of bargain, compromise and contingency between the parties; (ii) as a dole, which means subordination of the wife to the wage-earning husband and (iii) as an entitlement, which means sharing of domestic power and autonomy. The nature of financial transactions during a marriage significantly influences the type of maintenance awarded to the wife upon its dissolution. If the transaction is treated as a payment, the quantum of maintenance can be determined from a market perspective, taking into account factors such as opportunity cost.
Conversely, when the transaction is perceived as a dole, maintenance is seen as a discretionary provision or gift from the husband to the wife, intended to sustain her livelihood or support the child. However, if the transaction is treated as an entitlement, the wife benefits more equitably upon dissolution of the marriage. This approach not only improves her financial position but also recognises her as an equal partner with her husband, giving her a stronger voice and agency in post-marital negotiations and decisions. This approach recognises UDCW and could lay down the foundation for a law on matrimonial property. This framework emphasises equality and shared ownership in the marital partnership, thereby creating a moral and legal right to the property acquired during marriage and providing a basis for equitable usage of property upon divorce.
If courts can calculate the economic value of a homemaker’s labour after her death, it is difficult to justify ignoring the same labour when a marriage ends in divorce. The next frontier of gender justice may therefore lie not in higher maintenance awards but in recognising that the wealth accumulated during marriage belongs to both spouses.
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