Patriarchy is a social system in which men hold primary power, predominate in the roles of political leadership, moral authority, special privilege and control of the property. Men are also centre and authoritative figure in the domain of the family. Patriarchy has been one of the dominant features of Indian society.

Entitlement means the socially sanctioned right to have or do something, something that we have an official right to: the amount that we have the right to receive. Feminist sociologists criticize modern criteria of entitlements. They blame that entitlement is differentially distributed in modern society. Patriarchy still defines entitlements, not the modernity.

Entitlements on the basis of gender status

• Entitlements over household: A woman’s right over household declines after the death of her parents. Entitlements of ownership over her house are restricted because of patriarchy and primordial values.
• Entitlements over food: Bina Majumdar studied status of a woman on the basis of entitlement over food. Her findings show the influence of patriarchal values still prevalent in matters of food in the family. Malinowski in his study found that- food meant for god is prepared by unmarried girls and food for domestic consumption is prepared by married women.
• Women in traditional Indian society generally eat after the meal of make members. Also their food is of inferior quality some times.
• Entitlement over projection of oneself: Women make food using rental and physical labour. So her productive labour is involved in preparation of food But she is not given credit for such act. Entitlement our maiden surname changed after marriage. Prefix is a must before the name of women after marriage. This signifies women as private property of man. Cultural prescription, patriarchal prescriptions define how a woman will present herself before or after her marriage. This shows that a woman does not have entitlement over her own existence.
• Entitlement over women’s own self: Tulsi Patel in study of Rajsthan concluded that a woman becomes mother-in-law by the age of 35. This is because of child marriage. This shows that women do not have entitlement over the children she is going to produce.
• Entitlement over sexuality: Women’s sexuality is greatly controlled and men’s sexuality is free, in a patriarchal society.Women’s sexuality is subjected to patriarchal construct Men make culture and dominate private sphere of women. Men and women are bom equal but it is the society and culture which makes the status unequal.
• Entitlement over work: Gender based inequality in sphere of work is found in almost all societies. But it is absolute in socialist society. Reproductive role of women restricted her role in work field Women never get out of her confinement of domestic life. Women’s labour is rendered unpaid in domestic sphere. Her work is absolutely unrecognized and unappreciated A kind of exploitation of women takes place at home. Gender role division persists. Women are silent workers. Exploitation in industries leads to revolution by exploited workers. But the silent workers never manifest the opposition to exploitation.
• Entitlement over power in the family and society : Decisions taken in a family are also influenced by patriarchal values. In less important decisions women are concerned Important decisions are taken by elders in the family in consultation with other male members. Women don’t have the power to control over her body. The number of children to produce, the name of the child property belonging to family, her public affairs are all controlled by family.

In our country, women still lag much behind men despite some improvement since Independence. Ours is still a male-dominated Patriarchal society. Women face disadvantage, discrimination and oppression in various ways.

• The literacy rate among women is only 54 per cent compared with 76 per cent among men. Similarly, a smaller proportion of girls students go for higher studies. When we look at school results, girls perform as well as boys, if not better in some places. But they dropout because parents prefer to spend their resources for their boys education rather than spending equally on their sons and daughters.
• No wonder the proportion of women among the highly paid and valued jobs is still very smalL On an average an Indian woman works one hour more than an average man every day. Yet much of her work is not paid and therefore often not valued The Equal Wages Act provides that equal wages should be paid to equal work. However in almost all areas of work, from sports and cinema, to factories and fields, women are paid less than men, even when boy do exactly the same work.
• In many parts of India parents prefer to have sons and find ways to have the girls child aborted before she is born. Such sex-selective abortion led to a decline in child sex ratio (number of girls children per thousand boys) in the country to merely 927. There are reports of various kinds of harassment, exploitation and violence against women. Urban areas have become particularly unsafe for women. They are not safe even within their own home from beating, harassment and other forms of domestic violence.