Restitution of conjugal rights (RCR) entrenches patriarchal control, extracting women’s unpaid care labour and denying their right to work.
Authors
Aishwarya Singh, Faculty of Law and Justice, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Harikartik Ramesh, Lecturer, Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India
Summary
Family law scholarship has not given much attention to the use of restitution of conjugal rights in the context of care work. The paper examines cases involving employed women living apart from their spouses leading to husbands filing petitions for RCR. Such petitions demand that the wives give up their current employment and take up residence with the husband. The paper argues that the jurisprudence of the Indian courts on this issue has reinforced the sexual division of labour and the extraction of unpaid care work from wives. It also highlights the influence of caste and class on the adjudication of such cases.
Published in: Economic and Political Weekly
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