Work and domestic roles of the Dule Bagdi women of southern West Bengal

The traditional Bengali Hindu view of women's work roles confined in the boundaries of the household, characterized by dependence on, & obedience to, their husbands' authority, has little relevance to the social & economic life of the Dule Bagdi of West Bengal, India. Their subsistence economy compels a married couple to start a structurally independent nuclear unit of their own supported by the incomes earned by both husband & wife working as wage earners. The complementarity of the division of labor between husband & wife, the absence of a wife's total economic dependence on her husband, & the lack of any real economic authority of the husband over his wife give rise to a domestic unit among the Dule Bagdis where the husband & wife relate to each other in horizontal, rather than vertical, terms. Adapted from the source document.