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This article has been researched and written by Advocate Aarun Chanda, who practices divorce law in Mumbai and Pune. It is intended solely for academic purposes and should not be construed as legal advice. The views expressed are personal. Readers are encouraged to consult a qualified lawyer or advocate specializing in divorce cases for professional legal guidance.

There are some questions that come to a lawyer’s chamber which sound deceptively simple.

“Sir, I have a job. Can I still call myself a homemaker?”

I suspect that, in an ordinary conversation, most people would answer that question in a few seconds. In a courtroom, however, nothing is ever quite so simple. A single word can acquire a life of its own once it enters a pleading, an affidavit, a compensation claim or a judgment.

And “homemaker” is one such word.

For years, our social vocabulary quietly treated the word as another polite substitute for “housewife”. The assumption was almost automatic: the person managing the home was a woman; the person earning outside it was a man. If the woman also happened to be educated, professionally qualified or employed, the neatness of that old classification began to disappear.

But families have never really been that neat.

I have seen husbands who manage the home while their wives pursue demanding careers. I have seen fathers who take children to school, attend parent-teacher meetings, supervise homework, manage household purchases and organise the family calendar with military precision. I have seen professional women return from work and then spend a second shift looking after the family. I have also seen men quietly put their careers aside for children or elderly parents.

Yet the language of the law has sometimes struggled to keep pace with the reality of the family.

The Karnataka High Court has now supplied an important correction.

In Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation v. Pampapal, MFA Nos. 6955 of 2018 and 8569 of 2018, decided on 4 August 2026, Justice Chillakur Sumalatha made an observation that deserves attention far beyond the motor accident claim in which it arose: the word “homemaker” is gender-neutral.A homemaker may be male or female. The concept can include a working person, a professional, a breadwinner or a wage earner who also contributes to the care and welfare of the family.

It is a short proposition.

Its implications are much larger.

The case began with an accident, not a debate about gender
The case before the Karnataka High Court arose from a motor vehicle accident in October 2013.

The claimant had suffered injuries in an accident involving a Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation bus and was left with permanent disability. She had a Master’s degree in Biotechnology and had previously worked as a guest lecturer.

The Motor Accident Claims Tribunal had awarded her compensation. In the appeal, an interesting dispute arose concerning the manner in which her contribution to the household should be understood for purposes of compensation.

The argument advanced on behalf of the claimant was straightforward: even if she was not working as a lecturer on the date of the accident, her services to her family had economic value and ought to be recognised.

The opposing argument was equally revealing. Since she was highly educated, it was suggested that she could not properly be regarded as a homemaker.

That is where the case moved beyond the arithmetic of compensation.

It became a question about what society means when it says that someone is a “homemaker”.

And the Court’s answer was refreshingly direct.

A degree does not cancel homemaking
The Karnataka High Court rejected the idea that education disqualifies a person from being a homemaker.

A woman does not cease to be a homemaker because she has a degree.

She does not cease to be one because she holds a postgraduate qualification.

She does not cease to be one because she has previously worked as a professional.

And, importantly, the Court said that even a working woman or professional can be regarded as a homemaker if she renders services at home and looks after the welfare of family members.

The Court went further.

It observed that being a homemaker does not require a person to be illiterate, to remain inside the home twenty-four hours a day, or to perform household chores to the exclusion of everything else.

That observation deserves emphasis because it dismantles a surprisingly persistent misconception.

A homemaker is not defined by where the person works.

A homemaker is defined, in substance, by what the person contributes to the functioning and welfare of the family.

That is a considerably more realistic understanding of modern family life.

The sentence that changes the conversation
The most important part of the judgment is perhaps the simplest.

The Court stated that the word “HOMEMAKER” is gender-neutral.

A homemaker, therefore, can be male or female.

The Court also expressly included working persons, breadwinners and wage earners within the concept.

For those of us practising matrimonial law, this is particularly significant.

Family litigation is full of assumptions about who does what.

The husband earns.

The wife manages the home.

The husband pays.

The wife sacrifices.

The husband has a career.

The wife has domestic responsibilities.

These assumptions may once have reflected a dominant social pattern. They cannot, however, be treated as universal truths in contemporary family life.

There are dual-income families.

There are stay-at-home fathers.

There are mothers who are senior professionals.

There are fathers who work from home and manage the children.

There are families in which one spouse earns more than the other.

There are families in which both spouses work full-time but one carries a disproportionate share of domestic responsibilities.

And there are families in which the economic roles change several times during the marriage.

The law must be capable of seeing all of them.

Homemaking is work, even when there is no salary slip
This is where the judgment has significance beyond terminology.

One of the enduring problems with domestic labour is that it is often invisible precisely because it is indispensable.

Nobody issues a payslip for preparing a child’s breakfast.

Nobody sends an invoice for taking an elderly parent to hospital.

There is no salary account for managing the household budget, supervising schoolwork, arranging medical appointments, purchasing groceries, maintaining the home or caring for family members.

Yet if the person performing all these tasks suddenly disappears, the family quickly discovers their economic value.

Someone has to be hired.

i. A cook.
ii. A cleaner.
iii. A driver.
iv. A tutor.
v. A caregiver.
vi. A household manager.
vii. A person to supervise children.
viii. A person to organise appointments and daily logistics.
What was previously described as “not working” suddenly becomes a collection of services with measurable market value.

The law has increasingly recognised this reality.

The Supreme Court has, in the context of motor accident compensation, repeatedly emphasised the economic value of household services and rejected the simplistic assumption that a person without a conventional salary makes no economic contribution.

The Karnataka High Court’s judgment fits comfortably within that broader jurisprudential movement.

It does something more.

It removes the gendered assumption from the very vocabulary.

Why the word “housewife” has become inadequate
There is a reason modern legal discourse increasingly prefers the word “homemaker”.

“Housewife” describes a woman.

“Homemaker” describes a role.

That distinction matters.

A role can be performed by either spouse.

The modern family is not an organisation chart in which gender automatically determines designation.

A man may be the primary caregiver.

A woman may be the principal breadwinner.

Both may work.

Neither may work outside the home.

One may work remotely while simultaneously performing substantial domestic responsibilities.

The economic arrangement may change after childbirth, illness, relocation, retirement or the needs of elderly parents.

The word “homemaker” is therefore much better suited to contemporary family structures because it describes contribution rather than gender.

The Karnataka High Court’s formulation acknowledges precisely this reality.

The working woman who is still a homemaker
The Court’s observation concerning working women is particularly important.

For many years, there has been an implicit assumption that employment outside the home and homemaking are mutually exclusive.

They are not.

A woman may spend eight or ten hours at work and still return home to perform substantial household responsibilities.

The same is true of a man.

The Court therefore recognised that employment outside the home does not automatically eliminate the status of homemaker.

This is particularly relevant to matrimonial disputes.

I have encountered arguments in family courts where the employment of one spouse is treated as though it conclusively establishes that the person has no domestic responsibilities.

That is rarely a safe assumption.

A payslip tells us what a person earns.

It does not tell us who wakes the child at 6 a.m.

It does not tell us who attends the parent-teacher meeting.

It does not tell us who remembers the medication schedule of an elderly parent.

It does not tell us who organises the household.

It does not tell us who sacrifices a promotion, transfers to another city, changes working hours or works from home to accommodate family needs.

Income is measurable.

Care is not always so easily measured.

The law must nevertheless recognise both.

The homemaker can also be the breadwinner
The Court’s reference to a homemaker being capable of being a breadwinner or wage earner is particularly significant.

At first glance, the two concepts may appear contradictory.

They are not.

A person can contribute economically to the family and simultaneously contribute through domestic care.

The traditional division between “earning” and “homemaking” was never as absolute as social language suggested.

In many families, both spouses earn.

Both spouses care for children.

Both manage household responsibilities.

The only difference may be the proportion in which those responsibilities are distributed.

The law should therefore avoid replacing one stereotype with another.

It would be just as wrong to say that every person who works outside the home is not a homemaker as it is to say that only an unemployed spouse can be one.

The accident-compensation context is important
The judgment arose under the law relating to motor accident compensation, and that context should not be overlooked.

The Court was considering the economic consequences of permanent disability and the claimant’s loss of capacity to render services.

The Court enhanced the compensation from approximately ₹4.55 lakh awarded by the Tribunal to approximately ₹6.52 lakh, recognising the significance of the claimant’s homemaking services along with other aspects of the claim.

The judgment therefore does not create a general statutory definition of “homemaker” applicable mechanically to every legal proceeding.

Nor does every person who performs some household task automatically become entitled to a particular amount of compensation.

The legal significance lies in the Court’s conceptual approach.

The contribution of homemaking cannot be dismissed merely because it does not come with a conventional employment contract.

And the identity of the homemaker cannot be determined by gender.

A valuable lesson for matrimonial courts
For those of us appearing regularly before Family Courts, this observation has a wider resonance.

Maintenance proceedings, divorce litigation, custody disputes, property disputes and claims concerning matrimonial contribution frequently involve questions about who contributed what to the family.

Courts have to look beyond salary certificates.

A marriage is not a joint venture in which only monetary investment counts.

A spouse may contribute money.

Another may contribute time.

One may build the financial foundation.

The other may maintain the domestic foundation upon which that financial activity becomes possible.

Often, both do both.

The law should not force these contributions into a crude hierarchy.

Indeed, the very language of “earning spouse” and “non-earning spouse” can sometimes obscure reality.

A person who does not receive a salary may nevertheless be working every day.

The absence of wages is not necessarily the absence of work.

The changing architecture of the Indian family
The Karnataka judgment also reflects something larger happening in Indian society.

The traditional family model is changing.

Urbanisation, professional mobility, remote working, dual-income households, changing parenting patterns and increased participation of men in domestic responsibilities have altered the way families function.

A father taking parental leave is no longer an extraordinary idea.

A mother earning substantially more than her husband is no longer legally remarkable.

A husband becoming the primary caregiver while his wife pursues a demanding profession is increasingly visible.

And a couple may divide household responsibilities according to convenience, ability and circumstance rather than gender.

The law must respond to these realities without becoming ideological.

That is precisely why the Karnataka High Court’s formulation is useful.

It does not say that men are homemakers instead of women.

It says that homemaking is a role open to both.

That is equality without erasing difference.

The dignity of invisible labour
There is another dimension which deserves attention.

Domestic work has historically suffered from a peculiar problem: the better it is performed, the less visible it becomes.

A well-run household creates the illusion that everything happens naturally.

Children reach school on time.

Meals appear.

Bills are paid.

Appointments are remembered.

The house functions.

Family members are cared for.

And because everything works, nobody asks who made it work.

That is the paradox of homemaking.

Its success can make its labour invisible.

Courts have an important role in correcting that invisibility, particularly where legal rights depend upon recognising economic contribution.

The Karnataka High Court’s judgment reminds us that the absence of a salary slip cannot be treated as proof of the absence of work.

A gender-neutral concept is also a more accurate concept
There is sometimes a fear that gender-neutral language diminishes the historical contribution of women to domestic labour.

I do not believe that is the correct way to understand the judgment.

Women have, historically and overwhelmingly, carried a disproportionate share of unpaid domestic work. That social reality should not be ignored.

But acknowledging that reality does not require the law to define homemaking as inherently female.

On the contrary, making the concept gender-neutral allows the law to recognise women’s contribution while also recognising men who perform the same role.

That is a more principled approach.

If a woman who leaves paid employment to care for her family is a homemaker, a man who does exactly the same thing should not require a different legal vocabulary.

The work is the same.

The dignity should be the same.

What the judgment does not say
A good judgment should also be read for what it does not say.

The Karnataka High Court has not held that every married person is automatically entitled to compensation merely because he or she performs household duties.

Nor has the Court prescribed a universal monetary value for homemaking.

The judgment arose in the specific context of a motor accident claim and the assessment of compensation.

Its broader observation concerns the proper understanding of the term “homemaker” and the recognition of family services.

That distinction matters.

Legal principles become weaker, not stronger, when they are stretched beyond the factual and statutory context in which they were pronounced.

The real strength of this judgment lies precisely in its modest but important proposition: homemaking should be understood by reference to contribution, not gender or educational status.

A lesson for lawyers as well
There is a lesson here for advocates too.

We lawyers are often creatures of terminology.

We draft “working wife”.

“Non-working wife”.

“Housewife”.

“Earning husband”.

“Dependent spouse”.

Sometimes the language slips into pleadings without our stopping to ask whether it accurately describes the person before the court.

Perhaps we should.

Words influence how facts are perceived.

Calling someone a “non-working spouse” may subtly suggest inactivity.

Calling the same person a “homemaker” draws attention to the work being performed.

That does not determine the legal outcome.

But it may help the court see the facts more accurately.

And accuracy is where good advocacy begins.

The Family Court should see the whole family, not merely the payslips
The broader implication of the judgment is particularly relevant to matrimonial jurisprudence.

Family Courts deal with human relationships.

They are not merely calculating machines for income and expenditure.

When deciding questions of maintenance, child care, financial dependency or the consequences of marital breakdown, courts inevitably encounter unpaid labour.

The contribution of a spouse to a family cannot always be captured by Form 16, bank statements or employment certificates.

Sometimes the most valuable contribution is the one that never appeared on a balance sheet.

The Karnataka High Court has, in its own way, placed that reality firmly within the legal conversation.

The home is also a workplace
Perhaps the most useful way to understand the judgment is to abandon the old idea that work happens only in an office.

Work happens in homes too.

Sometimes it is paid.

Sometimes it is unpaid.

Sometimes it is both.

The distinction between “working” and “not working” is therefore increasingly artificial when used without context.

A person can work for an employer and work for a family.

A person can earn a salary and perform unpaid domestic labour.

A person can be a professional and a homemaker.

A person can be a breadwinner and a homemaker.

A person can be male or female.

The categories are no longer mutually exclusive.

The Karnataka High Court has simply said what modern family life has been telling us for some time.

The law must recognise the family as it actually exists
The greatest value of judicial decisions is sometimes not the amount of compensation awarded or the particular dispute resolved.

It is the change in perspective they encourage.

The Karnataka High Court’s description of the homemaker is one such example.

It asks us to look beyond the traditional picture of a woman confined to the home.

It asks us to see the father who stays home with the children.

The husband who manages the household while his wife works.

The professional woman who returns from the office to begin a second shift.

The couple who divide responsibilities without following traditional gender roles.

And the person whose contribution to the family cannot be adequately described by a salary certificate.

The Court’s observation that a homemaker is a person who strives, sacrifices personal comfort and becomes a pillar of family stability is not merely a sentimental description. It is an attempt to give legal language to an economic and social reality.

The rule of law must also recognise ordinary life
As a Senior Advocate practising before Family Courts and High Courts, I have come to appreciate that some of the most important questions in law arise from very ordinary lives.

Who looked after the child?

Who gave up the job?

Who moved cities?

Who cared for the parents?

Who managed the home?

Who made the sacrifices that allowed the other spouse to pursue a career?

These questions do not always fit comfortably into legal categories.

But courts must answer them nevertheless.

That is why language matters.

When the law calls someone a “homemaker”, it should not silently mean “woman”.

It should mean a person who contributes to the making and sustaining of a home.

That person may be a woman.

That person may be a man.

That person may be employed.

That person may be a professional.

That person may be the principal breadwinner.

The essential question is not gender.

It is contribution.

And perhaps that is the most valuable lesson in the Karnataka High Court’s judgment.

A family is not built only by the person whose name appears on the salary slip. It is built by countless visible and invisible contributions, many of which have no market price but enormous economic and human value.

The rule of law becomes meaningful when it learns to see those contributions.

And when the law finally recognises that homemaking has no gender, it does something more than redefine a word—it acknowledges the dignity of work that has for too long been hidden in plain sight.

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