Housewives are expensive

This rather Bengali obsession with a mishti Ghorer Bou is in practice extremely corrosive. Not to say it reeks of male chauvinism.

Consider the effects:

1. Huge financial loss. I cannot overstate this. Let’s say women earn 80% of men on average. So 8000 saved over 45yrs compounded at 8% interest = 3921057. This can mean the difference between one kid or two. A residence in a bad part of town or good. Kids going to a private school or a public one. A lifetime spent cocooned in a tiny flat or widening your horizons from lots of traveling. All very important life choices that not only affect the couple, but also their kids, and hence future generations. It’s often argued that men can earn all that is needed and therefore women don’t need to earn. But can they? I beg to differ. Even if the guy is super qualified, unless he is in the top percentile of his income bracket, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for a man to earn the equivalent of a man + a woman's salary. For example, let’s say a man earns 100000 and a woman earns 80000 for a total of 180000 per annum at the outset of their career. How many men do you think will be able to earn 180000 from the first day of his career? This will hold true for all subsequent years also. Suppose that our man indeed starts earning 180000 after 20 yrs experience. But by now the wife also earns 140000. What is the likelihood that the man will earn 320000 after 20 years experience? Salary structures in the organized industrial sector are normally range bound. These ranges are hard, impossible to transgress in government jobs (and very very difficult, though not impossible, in private sector jobs) no matter how big a star you are in your work. For salaried professionals, who most Bengalis are, it’s a must to have a working spouse.

2. One-stroke-destitute. With the husband as the only bread earner, imagine what would happen if the husband were to become incapacitated or die due to an accident. With living conditions as they are in India and accidents all too common, I wonder how many families have met this terrible fate. Dual income families have the insurance of a second income to sponge up the debilitating effects of say, a malfunctioning machine or a drunken lorry driver. Short of that, a single accident is enough to destroy your life, your kids and your entire blood line.

3. Long loneliness. Age differences of up to 10 years in these marriages are routine. Now, with women's life expectancies far outstripping men's, they are typically widowed, and lonely, for a good 16-17 years. Without having spent a life in the workforce, the housewife is bereft of the social networks that develop at the workplace and which can sustain one even when her spouse is no more. These twilight years become a curse on her physical and mental wellbeing. Loneliness is a curse for the aged. Its no wonder our grandmothers are never role models for our daughters.

There is of course the not-to-little effect on the woman’s self esteem, women’s rights issues (which come with self reliance and a steady pay check), healthy exchange of ideas at work, learning opportunities for women that I am not going into for the moment.

But if you are still hell bent on getting a housewife, then you have the following options

1. Become rich the old way. Inherit it. Be lucky by birth to have so much money from your family that you will not need to work a day of your life. Then you can extend that privilege to your spouse as well.

2. Marry a rich girl (in practice this often means - with a rich father). Like Athina Roussel Onassis.

3. Be in some profession where income is dependent on your performance. E.g. be a businessman, a stock trader, a sports star, or on a commission-basis pay. Here there are potential huge upsides to your income could offset the lost income from your housewife spouse.

4. Don’t have kids.

In summary: Housewives are a luxury. Be sure that you can afford them.