Even as the terms home and house are widely apart, marked by oceans of difference between them on many counts, the rate of homes hosting their lords and ladies in a harmonious and enduring relationship turning into houses hosting the estranged life partners as single parents is steadily going up in our times across the land. The reasons for this unprecedented feature of India’s society are not far to seek. Even legal practitioners are taking up the cases of couples seeking to annul their promised wedlock as a specialisation and the land’s judiciary too has responded positively by setting up exclusive courts to hear and dispose of the cases speedily. These courts, named as Fast Track Courts may very well have paved the way for couples to rush and get the verdict in numbers like never before. Lawyers in the US are learnt to be having a field day charging hefty fees first to induce the couples to part ways and then to argue the case in the courts convincingly. Their counterparts in India have ushered in the west derived culture of changing homes into houses.

Thanks to the popularity of living as a nuclear family as opposed to the now-vanishing joint family, both in urban spaces and rural areas, the couples have denied themselves the benefits of advisory from the elderly members to resolve the differences threatening togetherness. Not only the young couples have exposed themselves to the point of separation but also have left their aged parents stranded.

Answering the question, “Who, between the lord of the home and its lady, takes the initiative in the make-over of their home to (their) houses?” in favour of either of them is purely a matter of conjecture. Misogynists (those who have prejudice against women) are sure to point the accusing finger towards the lady, at least for the reason of the well-known lady’s penchant for imitating the Joneses with demand for unaffordable and often unwanted luxuries of life. While incompatability on grounds of irritability owing to diametrically opposing outlook to a multitude of matters in daily life is a common reason for seeking separation, the lady’s objection to the lord’s affairs cannot be discounted.

If only the lords appreciate the lady’s inputs into addressing the onerous task of the family living in a state of bliss from dawn to dusk, not to forget her plight after dusk in cheering the lord, not only the home retains its homely ambience for the offsprings to bloom but also keep the hearth in the kitchen burning to keep the soul and the limbs together for all in the family. Every happy family makes a happy nation.