Working women

In the culture of arranged marriage, a woman marries a man and moves into his house with him, his parents, any older brothers, their wives and children, and any unmarried younger siblings. It is her duty to care for all of these people. To cook, clean, and do the dependency work (caring for children, sick, elderly, etc).

I met a woman in India, Deepa, who lives with her husband, his mother and father, his younger brother and sister (both out of school, working, ready for marriage), and 4 year old son. She works as a receptionist in a college full time with a one hour commute there and back. Every morning she must wake up at least two hours before leaving for work to prepare breakfast (all meals there require extensive cooking—no cereal and milk for them), prepare lunch for all who stay at home and pack lunch for those who go to work, clean the house (culturally the house must be swept and prayer done to the deities before leaving the house in the morning), and make sure that her 4 year old son was up, bathed, dressed, and ready for school. After working a full day and another 1 hour commute, she arrives home and must then prepare dinner for everyone in the home. In addition, all of the women in her house are vegetarian and the men eat meat, so instead of forcing the men to eat what is being served, she must cook two different meals. She does all of this work herself even though she lives with five other adults capable of helping out, two of which are women who used to do this work until Deepa moved into their household.

***I took this picture on the streets Mysore.