A recent order of the Supreme Court recognises the unpaid work done by women at home in its entirety. Hearing a dispute over insurance amount due to the survivors of a deceased couple—the man was a professional and the woman, a homemaker—the court observed that the notional income from unpaid housework by women should factor in their labour as well as their “sacrifices”; the apex court revised the insurance amount upwards. The seven-point manifesto brought out by Kamal Haasan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam party in the run-up to Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu also talks about “due recognition” of women’s unpaid housework. Fixing a notional income—when paying women for housework, within the dominant social paradigm seems a near impossibility—establishes recognition of…