Radhaben Vaghela always knew she would have to leave her childhood home once she grew up. Born in the village of Sitavar in western India, Vaghela was never allowed to go to school or encouraged to find a job. When she turned 16, her parents announced that they had chosen a man for her to marry.

Within weeks, she was ejected from the house and sent to live with her new husband, in his family home. She was never asked if she was happy to live in a stranger’s house, although declining wasn’t really an option: she would have been thrown out of her parents’ home either way.

“I moved to his house and, at that time, the whole family lived together in huts – his parents, his brothers and their wives,” recalls Vaghela, who is now in her mid-30s and lives with her husband in the western city of Vadodara.

Overnight, her life changed. No longer a young girl, she couldn’t play with her siblings or expect her mother to make her dinner. She had to abide by the rules of her husband’s family and, as the youngest wife, shouldered responsibility for all the household chores.

“Suddenly I had new duties,” says Vaghela. “I was expected to cook and make sure everyone got their food on time. That’s the life of every woman, isn’t it?”

Vaghela is one of millions of “bahus” or housewives in India who leave their childhood homes to move in with their husband’s families after marriage. Indian women are supposed to be treated as daughters in their husbands’ homes, but in reality many are forced into a life of near slavery.

Housework aside, young wives are often barred by their husbands or in-laws from earning money, wearing certain clothes or leaving home after dark. For many, marriage means giving up childhood habits and forgetting old identities.

Rivalry between older and younger women is so common in joint family households that it has spawned an entire sub-genre of “saas-bahu” soap operas about wives and mothers-in-law. They are among the most popular programmes on Indian television.



Moving to the husband’s home is the norm in Indian villages, where two-thirds of the country’s 1.25 billion population live. But as India westernises and average household incomes increase, the “joint family” tradition is in decline in cities. Many young women now prefer to leave the family home so that they can enjoy married life without the pressure of having to please their husband’s parents.

However, a recent legal ruling has institutionalised the outdated custom and risks making women more vulnerable to abuse. Last month, India’s supreme court granted a divorce to a man after his wife refused to live with her in-laws, saying that wives who wanted to leave were inspired by “western thought” and were violating traditional Hindu values.

National records figures show that every year since 1997 more than 20,000 Indian housewives have committed suicide

Maya Kapoor*, from the eastern city of Kolkata, moved in with her in-laws after marrying in 1998. “[My husband and I] dated for 10 years before we got married, but in the first week of marriage I found out that he was a totally different person,” she says. “I had to cook breakfast and lunch for everyone, do all the dishes, laundry, everything. I had a job, and when I came home the whole house would be a mess, dirty dishes piled up. I used to get very tired. Even if I was sick, he’d say, ‘Well if you’re sick, you can do it tomorrow,’ rather than offering to help.”

The dynamic of the relationship completely changed, with Kapoor no longer regarded as her husband’s equal but instead obliged to follow the rules of the house. She had to wear traditional Indian clothes, and place a ghunghat (veil) over her head. “Not one strand of hair was allowed to show,” she says.

Kapoor lived in constant fear of her mother-in-law. “I just had to keep quiet. I couldn’t say anything against my mother-in-law. I was so scared living in that house, I would literally shiver. I was tortured.”

It is perhaps no surprise that rates of depression among married Indian women are much higher than elsewhere. According to the Lancet, Indian women are two and a half times more likely to commit suicide than women in wealthier countries. Figures from the National Crime Records Bureau show that every year since 1997, more than 20,000 Indian housewives have committed suicide.

Ten years after marriage, Kapoor’s husband agreed to move out of his mother’s home, but things got worse. “His mother and sister said I was taking him away from them. I can never, ever say anything about his mother.”

Despite years of abuse, Kapoor has no choice but to keep living with her husband. She fears that reporting his violence to the police will only lead to more abuse for her and her children, and believes little would be done to help her anyway.

“In this society it is so ingrained that the man is the superior partner,” says Winnie Singh, director of women’s rights NGO Maitri. “The husband controls the money. Normally, he gives the money he earns to his mother. If he starts giving money to his wife, there are major major fights in the house. Its an issue of power and control.”

Singh argues that the supreme court’s ruling will make things even worse for Indian housewives. “This is not a good ruling … it only affects women. A man never has to move in with his wife’s parents. Many women are abused, and many, many women are depressed.”

Students and social activists rally against domestic violence outside the Kolkata police HQ. One woman in every six in the city is tortured by her husband, data from the National Crime Records Bureau shows. Photograph: Saikat Paul/Getty Images

The Indian government has made a few feeble attempts to protect women from violence, such as the Domestic Violence Act 2005.

Despite the act, police are unwilling to intervene in cases of domestic violence, which are seen as household disputes. A 2014 legal case, Arnesh Kumar v State of Bihar, culminated with Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose ruling that the law was being used as a “weapon” by “disgruntled wives” and stipulating that police should not immediately arrest men accused of abuse.

The Indian courts do not recognise marital rape as a crime and divorced wives do not get rights to share their husband’s assets.

Life has started to improve for Vaghela. Her in-laws have now died and a smaller household means more time for other activities. “Now it’s just my husband and children, so I started making cloth bags which I sell to a charity called Paathshala. I earn around 5,000 rupees a month and that really helps with the finances. My husband doesn’t have a full-time job, so I’m happy that I have an income too, it helps pay for things like food and the children’s education.

“I have more respect in the house now, too, he values my work more.”

*Name changed to protect identity