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More and more educated women are resuming to their traditional role of house maker because it is the 'natural' thing for them to do.

The world is now witnessing a second awakening of women. This time they are returning to child rearing and housekeeping. It is triumph of mother instinct over self-assertion and the unnatural roles they had forced upon themselves.

A newly launched magazine, ‘Outlook’, carried a story on this theme in its April 3, 1996 issue. The author took interviews of several highly paid professionals who had recently quit their jobs to assume their long due responsibility of child rearing and marriage.

"Thank God that the day of reactionary and torturous feminism are over. You don’t have to do all that men do and work to qualify as a liberated woman," says Suruchi Kapoor. She had recently quit her job as associate manager at Sista Saatchi and Saatchi, a high profile global ad agency. She values most her identity as a woman. "My life does not become worthwhile because I have a career", said Wagata Deb. She had quit her job to be with her daughter. She finds fulfilment in motherhood. The same is the story of Surabhi Bikhchandani and Ruchi Thriuambala. Both have quit their jobs to look after their daughters. Surabhi was brand manager with Nestlé and the latter a senior product manager at a toiletry factory.

Global Trend

This trend is not limited to any particular country but is global. Catherine Hakeem of the London School of Economics found in a survey that two-thirds of British women considered being a housewife as important and useful as being a career woman outside home. Catherine Hakeem is of the view that still a maximum number of women do not like to take a career outside home. They think homely duties are their responsibility and earning for livelihood that of men.

In the United States of America, many women with young children, unable to cope with the growing demands of child-care have quit their jobs to be full time with their progeny. The trend is not an earthquake yet. But there are definite tremors indicating a cultural shift among these moms who are changing priorities. They are joining what David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values - a think-tank on family issues, calls ‘the new feminism’.

Deborah Maldonado, 36, of Ohio (US), had many engagements outside home. But as she had children, she cut down on her assignments. Her reason: "We give our children so much in society. But we do not give them our values, our traditions, our time or ourselves. And that is what kids are crying for." Michele Glass, 35, a retail marketing manager in California, quit her job when her twins were born two years back. Calic Sorenson Dixson founded Lawyers at Home. It has now 200 members in the Washington DC area. She was a tax lawyer and a partner in her firm. She quit to have kids. "Whatever job I do, I do 100 percent. I just fell in love with mothering and did not want to be pulled in two directions," she asserts.

Islâmic solution

A much-quoted article published in 1994, said: "Two pay-cheque family is on the decline... women of child bearing age are flocking back home." The new trend rhymes well with traditional Islâm. Islâmic tenets opened new paths of balance, practicability, fulfilment and security. It gave women the right to remarry, inherit property, and to see their husbands-to-be before marriage. These rights given to women were unparalleled in the entire history. Islâm has given both sexes equal rights. Women enjoy all the rights that men do. But the distribution of rights and duties is different. The criterion of rights distribution is based on their physical attributes.

Everything in the universe is made for a particular function. And everything is functioning and developing in its fixed place.

This also applies to human relationships. Social harmony will result only when men and women carry on their responsibilities well. And the bliss of harmony is above all the pleasures.

Islâm does not forbid women from work when necessary to support the family economically. However, it should always be secondary duty.

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