Young Home Maker's Pension and Retirement Industry

Economic deprivation of women in India is well documented. It is well known that women do not get a share of property from their parents in India even though the inheritance laws are made gender neutral now. Women who are widowed or divorced with children are considered as burdens on their parent’s and brothers.

Women who play the role of home makers do not get a salary every month. Let’s ask, do they get retirement benefits and pension, when they retire from the role of home makers ?

That’s an interesting question. As we explore the answers to this question, slowly some interesting and shocking facts will come to light.

Most companies have a provident fund (PF or in US 401k) for their employees, where the employee and the employer make a contribution. As an employee retires after many years of work, his PF or 401k amount grows to a big amount of money, a part of which he utilises to have a monthly income or pension. A person gets pension only when he or she works for a long time, often for two or three decades. If a person leaves a job in two or three years, he virtually gets nothing as the money in his PF or 401k is very less. Now, let us see how it works for home makers in India.

Aneef (name changed) is 26 year old software Engineer and is married. His home maker wife Najma (name changed) quit after 6 months of marriage and went back to her parent’s place in Delhi. The court at Delhi awarded her a pension of Rs.25,000/- (USD 550) per month from her employer, i.e. her husband Aneef. Well, in legal jargon, this pension is called “interim maintenance”.

Wow!! No other job anywhere else in the world will provide a person with such a huge pension for a short career of 6 months. Interestingly, a woman who has worked for 25 years as a home maker would also have got the same or lesser pension per month, if she had quit her role as a home maker.

So, earlier you quit the marriage, the better it is. Now I am enlightened.
In fact, a judge gets a pension of Rs.25,000/- per month after working for 30 long years. The young home maker has a chance to get that much pension for a career of just 6 months.

This thoughtless progressivism has inspired a lot of old men. At the first opportunity of their daughter complaining about her husband on a trivial issue, they motivate her to quit the marriage and claim pension from her young husband, trained in all possible soft skills in the world. Staying in marriage is a struggle for young women. They are expected to cook, clean and maintain good relation with interfering in-laws without any pay. Separation is profitable as you get Rs.25,000/- for doing absolutely nothing. One can just lie on a sofa, watch TV at papa’s home and get all those free bucks in your bank account every month. In fact, your husband pays an additional Rs.10,000 as tax to Government before he transfers Rs.25,000 to your bank account. This tax money goes to pay salaries to the police, the judiciary and the law makers.

If the employer of home maker (or husband) cannot pay this pension (or interim maintenance) due to bankruptcy, then he can be simply thrown in jail or can be told to sell his kidneys or even beg, borrow and steal money to pay you. A man in Punjab asked the court to allow him to sell of his kidneys as he was unable to pay two different pensions to his wife.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Punjab-Man-wants-to-sell-kidney-to-pay-alimony/articleshow/4938839.cms

I am further enlightened. I am really inspired to employ a home maker in my home.

This thinking comes from old law makers, who have absolutely nothing personal at stake. They have one leg in the grave and have got nothing to lose.

Bangalore based Software Executive Raveesh’s (name changed) wife of 1.5 years wanted to quit marriage. In the court, she claimed Rs.1 crore (USD 220,000) as one time retirement benefit, which is termed as Alimony in legal jargon.

Here is the conversation I had with Raveesh:

Me : “what is the ground for her to claim this amount?”

Raveesh: “She wants Rs.30,000/- per month for next 30 years. So, it comes to about Rs.1 crore and she wants it now. In fact, after going to court she has joined a famous Multinational Company as she is an Engineer.”

Wow!! India has really progressed. I am confused, why so many young women are still staying in marriage, when they have a potential get such huge sums of retirement benefits waiting outside the door as they quit? May be a lot of young women are still not aware of all these money that they stand to gain as they quit.

However, it has become extremely rare for me to find a woman, who does not claim a huge pension or retirement benefit from her husband.

DNA India reports the story of a young wife claiming maintenance from her husband. It says(
link),

Tina has claimed the maintenance of Rs2.5 lakh (USD 5000) a month. “Because of the attitude of the respondent [Nitin], she is being deprived of higher studies,” adding that because of Nitin’s assurances she had enrolled in Simmons Woman College in Boston to pursue MBA.

 2.5 lakhs income without any work just for being a young woman!!

In fact, some young home makers today go to the extent of demanding their husbands or husband’s parents to transfer their homes/properties in her name. Her father shouts, “How dare you not pay rupees one Crore and transfer your house in her name? You all ruined her life.”

Some old men even hire thugs to attack the husband and his parents. The courts look other way as such huge extortions take place. All these exorbitant claims are very well documented in court petitions submitted by women or their lawyers. Yet, the judges do not consider these as extortions (or reverse dowry) and instead tell men to go for out of court settlements with family elders and well intentioned lawyers.

The problem is not exactly with the judiciary. India is an “Old Male” dominated society. Old Males have one leg in the grave, another organ in Manusmriti and their souls live in 12th century, which makes them go crazy as they see rising separations and divorces in India. The old and stiff neural structures in their brains misfire badly when the information from cyber age enters through their dysfunctional synapses. As these old males occupy a lot of powerful positions, the social policies are getting badly screwed up.

So, these crazy old males ended up creating a process in which a young woman are rewarded with 3 or 4 lakhs (USD 6500 to 8500) every single year as pension (or maintenance) for getting separated from her young, hardworking, sincere, considerate and faithful husband.

Just the way tax breaks on home loans makes people buy homes, the high monetary rewards to get separated makes young women think of divorce without working out any differences with their spouse in a rational manner. I have also come across stories, where her old father literally blackmails and imprisons her to ensure that the relationship is completely ruined, so that she gets that pension of Rs.25,000/- per month.

Apart from insane old males, there are other vultures in this game as well.
When a pension (or interim maintenance) claim of Rs.2.4 lakhs per month is made from a husband by a woman or her lawyer, can we guess the percentage a lawyer can expect to get as commission? We estimate more than 5,00,000 separations or divorces in Indian every single year.

 This is a new service industry, which employs a lot of people. There is no manufacturing; no green house gases and so many people are employed in this “Home Maker Retirement and Pension” industry.

To claim this new kind of pension, young home makers have to just approach the lawyers. First the lawyers file a lawsuit under section 125 of Hindu maintenance act demanding a huge amount of money for every month. Then, they file another lawsuit under Domestic Violence Act (DV Act) in a separate court again demanding money with the complaint that the husband has done domestic violence (economic violence) against the young hapless wife, by not giving her any money. The lawyers also coach the woman to wear a conservative dress (a Saree or a Salwar Kameez) and shed a lot of crocodile tears in the court.

Then, the family court and the domestic violence court act independently and give separate orders to the husband to give two different “pensions” (or maintenance) to the young woman. For example, the family court may order him to pay her Rs.12000/- per month as maintenance and the domestic violence court can order the man to pay Rs.8,000/- per month.

The young men go mad at such nonsense. Have you ever heard of a company giving two pensions to anyone who works for 6 months or a year? Some of these men just run to nearby multiplex to watch “Inglorious Basterds”. They are under siege from a vicious attack by the old males in the establishment. Most old males have no capacity to get educated.

Young Men ask, “Where do we ring the Bell now?”

I say WTF. A man is not an ATM Machine.

Young Husbands Protest at Nagpur Marathon:



Women in short marriages of 3 years or less deserve no pension or retirement benefits. Courts must not award any maintenance or alimony, if marriage is less than 3 years and there are no children in marriage. Women and men are equal today. At most, the husbands can be told to give the young home maker a loan for training to get a job.

The “old male” dominating society has to change. The old males have to realise that their insane behaviour in different social issues like alimony, moral policing, and individual freedom can create a serious backlash against them one day or other. The solution for them is to give up all that power they have concentrated in their hands and take up something that their senile brains can afford to handle.