Revision summary
Patriarchal bargain is Kandiyoti’s name for deals with male-dominated order. In India it maps unpaid care, respectability, and informal pay. NFHS, time-use, SHGs, and gig-home work illustrate the living deal. Agency exists inside the constraint. Paid work without a rewrite of care is a new bargain, not the end of patriarchy.
Model answer
Introduction
Deniz Kandiyoti’s patriarchal bargain names the deals women strike with male-dominated orders to gain security, honour, or a limited voice. In contemporary India that bargain organises who does unpaid care, who takes informal pay, and who is allowed public mobility.
Body
The concept
- Classic patriarchy offers protection and respectability in return for obedience, fertility, and household labour.
- When the bargain shifts, women may enter paid work yet keep the double day.
Indian division of work
- NFHS and time-use files show women carrying most unpaid domestic and care work even when they earn.
- SHGs and rural livelihoods programmes can be a new bargain: credit and meetings without a full rewrite of property.
- Upper-caste respectability may keep women out of certain public jobs; poorer women bargain with contractors in construction and domestic service.
- Gig and home-based work extend paid labour into the house, which looks flexible and remains gendered.
Examination
- The bargain is agency inside constraint, not false consciousness alone.
- It can stall as well as enable. A rise in female work participation is not automatic equality.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD PB[Patriarchal bargain] --> SEC[Security honour] PB --> LAB[Unpaid care informal pay] IND[India NFHS SHG gig] --> PB
Conclusion
Patriarchal bargain explains why Indian women trade security for a gendered load of care and informal pay. Oakley made housework visible; Kandiyoti names the deal. Contemporary files show the deal changing, not ending.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Examine the relationship between the contemporary trends in marriage and changing from family
Next question on this syllabus topic (2017 · Q7(a)). View answer →
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Does a bargain mean women choose patriarchy?
It means they navigate it. The menu of options is already unequal.
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Is the bargain only rural?
Urban professional dual-earner homes still bargain over care and kin duty.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
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2021 · Q7(a) · Sociology GS 1 · 20 marks
Explain how the pattern of patriarchy is being altered in a family and at the workplace in the present context. -
2021 · Q8(a) · Sociology GS 1 · 20 marks
Discuss the changing nature of kinship relations in the contemporary world. -
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2018 · Q6(b) · Sociology GS 1 · 15 marks
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Examine the relationship between the contemporary trends in marriage and changing from family -
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More from this topic
Q4(a) · UPSC Mains 2025 · Sociology GS 1 · 20 marks
Give an account of the recent trends of marriage in the Indian context. How are these different from traditional practices?
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Traditional Indian marriage was typically early, arranged, caste-endogamous and family-led. Regional and religious diversity always qualified the textbook joint-family model. Recent trends include later age, schooling, online matching, dual earners and more public exit options. Endogamy and parental ratification persist inside modern forms such as matrimonial apps. Inter-caste, live-in and queer unions are visible but still minority or legally incomplete. The story is hybridisation of alliance, not a clean replacement by Western companionate marriage.
Q8(a) · UPSC Mains 2021 · Sociology GS 1 · 20 marks
Discuss the changing nature of kinship relations in the contemporary world.
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Q7(a) · UPSC Mains 2021 · Sociology GS 1 · 20 marks
Explain how the pattern of patriarchy is being altered in a family and at the workplace in the present context.
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Patriarchy is male dominance across household and work; it can change form. Family: more dual earning and law, still care, honour, and NFHS violence. Workplace: some professions and SHGs, still informal segregation. WFH and lockdown reorganised rather than ended the double day. Walby’s public patriarchy is the best short map.
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