The vital role of women in family and society

Women’s role in our society is extremely vital and they are given the position of goddess in our society. Women in our society are highly valued and even the laws of our country protect and safeguard them from wrongful acts. What needs to be clearly understood is that without women’s contributions, our society cannot work properly. Women not just give birth to the child, but helps to ensure the sustainable development in the family. In the home, women can play a variety of roles, including those of wife, head of the household, administrator, manager of finances, and last but not the least, mother.
In the past, there were no proper safeguards for women and they were ill-treated and had to suffer due to practices like Sati; it was a kind of ritual that women were forced to follow. Originally a free act regarded as brave and heroic, the ancient Hindu traditional ritual of sati—wherein a widow would fling herself on her husband’s pyre and burn to death—became a forced practice and, with time, women gradually realized this. Sati, despite being outlawed in India now, has a sordid past. People have a myth in relation to sati which states that the bride of Lord Shiva was known by the name Sati in mythology. Shiva was never revered by her father, who disliked him. She set herself ablaze in retaliation for her father’s animosity against her husband. She prayed to be reborn as Shiva’s wife while she was burning. This did occur, and her subsequent rebirth was given the name “Parvati”. People used this story to support the practice.
Sati, according to historical records, originally appeared during the Gupta Empire’s dominance between 320 and 550 CE. Sati incidents were first noted in 464 CE in Nepal and again in 510 CE in Madhya Pradesh. The practice later expanded to Rajasthan, where the majority of sati incidents over the course of centuries occurred. This was also the practice due to which women have suffered a lot. In patriarchal society, the spouse holds the role of authority. The status is not as high in patriarchal tribal societies as it is in matrilineal civilizations. In patriarchal civilizations, men are granted extra privileges due to patriliny, patrilocal residency, and male line inheritance. Women’s standing is mostly influenced by the different taboos associated with them.
Now the scenario is different. Women have begun to work like facilitating in household bills. In several fields, women now outnumber males. Girls are consistently setting records that make not just their families or societies but the entire nation proud. The Fortune 500 achieved a milestone in June 2019 when it had the highest number of female CEOs ever. Even while every success is a victory, the gender gap in labour force participation among prime working age adults (25 to 54) has been stable over the past 20 years when seen as a whole. The deep-seated occupational segregation that persists in developed and developing nations has not been much impacted by women’s increased access to education. Unpaid care and domestic labour are still disproportionately performed by women. In poor nations, this includes difficult jobs like collecting water, which women and girls are responsible to carry out. Girls have been attending school in the rural areas, which has a good impact on India’s literacy rate and is moving the nation forward.
All around the nation, campaigns are held to raise awareness of women’s literacy. In addition to literacy, women living in rural areas know relatively little about personal hygiene and health issues. Free sanitary products are given to women who host awareness campaigns. This programme is designed to break the widespread taboo around the menstrual cycle.
In addition to taking care of household duties, women are increasingly working in the service industry in places like banks, hospitals, airlines, schools, and other occupations. They have also begun expressing interest in starting their own businesses.
The Government of India has also played an important role in empowering women by implementing various rules and regulations. The government banned ancient trends like female feticide, dowry, early child marriage, domestic violence, child labour, sexual harassment, etc., which really improved the status of women in society. A woman plays different important roles in everyone’s life in different forms, while being involved in different relationships.
From birth to the end of her life, she fulfills various roles such as daughter, sister, wife, mother and other human relations. However, her main roles are as a wife and mother. The position of women in urban societies is better, but still worse in many municipalities due to the lack of an adequate education and training system. A woman gives birth to a child and is considered solely responsible for the care, education, work, etc. of her child throughout her life. She never demands anything in return for her roles, instead she politely fulfills her roles through life without any hassle.
In today’s time, we have numerous laws and procedures which safeguard the interests of women like The Protection of Women From Domestic Violence Act,2005., Dowry Prohibition Act, Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, The Maternity Benefit Act 1961, Muslim Women (Protection of rights on divorce) Act, The Indecent Representation of Women 1986. We can observe that women and society are interdependent to each other as society is supposed to safeguard the interests of women and women contribute to society’s needs as a whole. Earlier, when there was no proper safeguard or law, there was no growth of women in society, but now, women are highly valued in society.

Archana Shukla is an Advocate practising in the Delhi High Court.