In my last post, I had talked about the "informal contract" in traditional families ; the husband peforms the "paid work" ( work , for which there is monetary compensation, such as work done in a office, shop, or factory ) , while the wife does the "unpaid work"--work , for which there is no monetary compensation, yet, which is necessary for the paid work to be done properly. Such unpaid work includes the traditional "duties of the wife" such as cooking, looking after children, and household chores. If such work is not done properly, the husband's performance in the paid work is bound to suffer.

This system might sound very effective-this has been the almost-universal norm for centuries. Yet, this is a very INEFFICIENT and WASTEFUL system ; it "uses" its "intellectual resources" in a very inefficient and wasteful manner.

Why? Simply because, men and women do not differ on the average scores of intelligence. If men and women are endowed with equal ( although not identical ) intelligence, they also ought to utilize their intelligence equally or nearly equally. After all, the human brain is the masterpiece of evolution, and the "hard work and labour" done by nature in building the superior human brain ( in comparison to other species ) should not go waste, but should be effectively utilised.

Yet traditional societies do not utilise the woman's intellectual abilities effectively. For example, a woman , whether she has IQ of 90 or an IQ of 130 ("genius") , has to perform the same household chores of washing the dishes in the sink, cleaning the house, cooking etc. A woman of IQ 130 would not differ very substantially in her ability to wash dishes than a woman of IQ 90. Put another way, her "extra" 40 IQ points are simply being wasted.

On the other hand , there would be a stark contrast in the vocational destinies of a man with IQ 130 and another man with IQ 90. While the man with IQ 130 would go on to land a plum professional job ( a scientist, IIT engineer or IAS officer ) , the man with IQ 90 would have to be content with the job of a junior clerk or a petty shopkeeper.

In contrast, a modern egalatarian society/family , which distributes the paid work and the unpaid work among the husband and wife far more equally and fairly, is FAR MORE EFFICIENT in utilising the intellectual capabilities of the two genders. In an egalatarian family, work is assigned to the husband and wife on the basis of interests and capabilities , not on the rigid basis of traditional gender roles. Hence, both husband and wife would work outside home , and both would cook and contribute to childcare.

Years ago, when I was in college, I was extremely impressed with the superior mental abilities of one of my female friends. She probably belonged to the category psychologists refer to as "gifted"- she could emerge first ranker in an exam after having studied for only a few days- I was left spellbound on seeing her ability to acquire massive quantities of complicated information in a very short span of time, and then retain and reproduce it. She would top in the college exam after having studied for only a few nights before the exam, leaving behind ordinary mortals who spent countless hours on the study table for the entire year. I bet her IQ was no lesser than 130.

But she belonged to a very traditional ( and perhaps backward ) family background , and I often feared that all her superior mental abilities would simply go waste one day, in washing the dishes in the sink. All the "labour" and "hard work" nature had done in making her superior neurons and "grey matter" would be simply go waste.

Thankfully , those fears have long been proved wrong. Appropriate to her level of intelligence , she is now a research scholar in Cambridge University.