Unemployed wife not idle, unjust to disregard her labour: Delhi HC

A Delhi High Court judgment has rejected the long-standing legal presumption that a non-earning wife is "idle," ruling that unpaid domestic labour carries real economic value and cannot be dismissed when determining maintenance.

Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma was hearing the case of Priti Ray, whose husband Rakesh Ray - a drilling engineer earning ₹5.29 lakh per month with Kuwait Oil Company - allegedly deserted her and their adopted son after returning to Kuwait following the pandemic. Two lower courts had denied her maintenance, reasoning that she was educated, able-bodied, and had chosen not to work.

The High Court disagreed. It drew a firm distinction between the capacity to earn and actual earnings , holding that mere capability is not grounds to deny maintenance. The court also rejected the husband's attempt to present household expense transfers as the wife's independent income, and refused to let voluntary EMI obligations reduce his assessed liability. It awarded ₹50,000 per month to the wife and ₹40,000 to the child , with arrears to be cleared within six months.

The judgment connects to a broader, age-old debate: homemakers remain invisible in national income calculations , their labour excluded from GDP since the mid-twentieth century on the grounds that no market transaction takes place. With the global rise of the care economy, that exclusion has faced growing challenges from economists and policymakers alike.

Justice Sharma noted that women who sacrifice careers for family cannot be expected to re-enter the workforce at the same level years later. She also flagged the social contradiction at play - society expects women to give up employment after marriage, yet husbands routinely cite their qualifications in court to deny them support.

The court recommended mediation over adversarial litigation in matrimonial disputes as a more realistic and humane path forward.