Survey: Majority of Indians feel 'wife must always obey husband'

A NEW study by a US-based think tank has revealed that majority of the Indian population feels that a wife must obey her husband and follow traditional gender roles.

The new report by Pew Research Center, however, said that people favour women having the same rights as men.

The report released on Wednesday (2) was based on a face-to-face survey of 29,999 Indian adults fielded between late 2019 and early 2020, before the Covid-19 pandemic.

The survey was conducted by local interviewers in 17 languages and covered nearly all of India's states and union territories.

"Indian adults nearly universally say it is important for women to have the same rights as men, including eight-in-ten (87 per cent) who say this is very important. At the same time, however, there are circumstances when Indians feel men should receive preferential treatment," the report said.

According to the report, 80 per cent agree with the idea that “when there are few jobs, men should have more rights to a job than women.”

"Women are only modestly less likely than men to say that wives should obey their husbands in all situations, and most Indian women express total agreement with this sentiment (61 per cent vs. 67 per cent among men)," it said.

The report said that Indians broadly accept women as political leaders citing examples of former prime minister Indira Gandhi, former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalitha, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and former external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj.

Most adults respondents said that women and men make equally good political leaders (55 per cent) or that women generally make better leaders than men (14 per cent).

The report also highlighted that even though most Indians said that men and women should share some family responsibilities, many still support traditional gender roles.

When it comes to children, Indians are united in the view that it is very important for a family to have at least one son (94 per cent) and, separately, a daughter (90 per cent).

The report revealed that Muslims (74 per cent), Jains (67 per cent) and Hindus (63 per cent) said that sons should be primarily responsible for funeral rituals, but far fewer Sikhs (29 per cent), Christians (44 per cent) and Buddhists (46 per cent) expect this from sons and are more likely to say that both sons and daughters should be responsible for their parents' last rites.

Muslims are more likely than other Indians to support traditional gender roles in families, while Sikhs are often the least likely community to hold such views.