Household Work: Exploitation and Negotiation

Abstract

This chapter centres on women’s work after marriage: both household labour and handicraft production for family use and for exchange. I discuss how women’s lives change after marriage when they experience the pressures of multiple responsibilities. In this context, I elaborate on the gendered division of labour in the villages of Khairpur which burdens women in different ways, with activities such as childcare and looking after the elderly, in particular their fathers-in-law and mothers-in-law and their parents (if alive). This gendered division of labour binds women into multiple responsibilities, but liberates men from them; they are only responsible for financing the family’s needs. I then consider household work, which is central to women’s life and keeps them busy for almost 17 hours a day. Although women are supposed to do their assigned tasks themselves, their mutual support is evident in doing these chores in order for them to perform their work on time. I discuss less routine tasks that are also the responsibility of the women such as looking after cattle and serving guests and then explain how women’s work is valued, who controls it and who benefits from it. In this context, I take account of the appropriation of women’s labour in households and discuss how women use their role as service provider to bargain with patriarchy. It is argued that women’s work is exploited by others and that others benefit from it, but that women also use this work as a means of making and consolidating a place for themselves in their affinal family. On the one hand, women are very much oppressed; they work for extremely long hours attending to the needs of many people, but at the same time, they have pride in their work. It is also demonstrated that despite their multiple responsibilities from dawn to dusk, women manage to create space for themselves that they utilize to earn some income through their handicraft work. Although they have strictly limited mobility, they have strategies that allow them to generate extra income by working from within their homes. This income helps them and their families in several ways and is central to their family’s well-being.