Majority of Indians agree with notion that ‘wife must obey husband’, says study

Washington/New Delhi: A majority of Indians completely or mostly agree with the notion that "a wife must always obey her husband" and support traditional gender roles but at the same time favour women having the same rights as men, according to a recent study by an American think tank.

The new report by Pew Research Center released on Wednesday looks into how Indians view gender roles at home and in society more generally. The report is based on a face-to-face survey of 29,999 Indian adults fielded between late 2019 and early 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The survey, which was also the basis for a 2021 report on religion in India, was conducted by local interviewers in 17 languages and covered nearly all of India's states and union territories.