In India, an elusive room of one's own

It took Chiya Singh three months and seven real estate agents working in tandem to find an apartment to rent in New Delhi.

The problem wasn't her credit history or salary. It was her status as a single Indian woman. The questions blocking Ms. Singh from a room of her own were a bit personal, she says. Prospective landlords wanted to know why, at age 29, she wasn't married and why, as a single person, she didn't want to live with her parents.

"It was an exhausting process," Singh says, of trying to find her own place after she divorced. "I became a broken record. They asked 'Why do you want to live alone?' I said, 'Um, because I think I'm old enough.' "

That response usually netted Singh a cold expression and a vague "We'll let you know" from the landlord.

Finding an apartment in any big city can be daunting, but in New Delhi, single Indian women face the added social expectation of living at home until they wed. Many young, middle-class, well-educated single Indian women, however, are overcoming family resistance only to run into suspicious landlords.

In India, "If you want freedom, it can only be for one thing – sex," Singh says. "You want to tell them [landlords], 'That's the last thing on my mind. I think I'm old enough to take care of myself.' But for the landlord, it becomes an issue of respectability."

While hers is still a rare case in India, Singh's search for her own apartment is becoming more common. Divorce rates are rising, and more women are taking well-paying jobs at call centers, hotels, and airlines. Such jobs take daughters far away from home and may entail long or odd hours, says Renu Addlakha, a sociologist at the Centre for Women's Development Studies here.

In less than a decade, the portion of middle-class women joining India's workforce has jumped from 1 to 15 percent. While job opportunities have given women in the upper-middle class economic independence, it has not changed Indian society's views about women, Ms. Addlakha says.

In Indian society, multiple generations often live under one roof with the eldest male serving as the head. Though it is increasingly acceptable for newlyweds to move out, single daughters are expected to stay home.

"I don't think people change their values so quickly," Addlakha adds. "What has changed is the desire to become wealthy has increased. So while families want the money, they also want to control the girl." Indian families want women to work so they can contribute to the family income and their future dowry, not sothey can become independent, she says.

While landlords all across India are leery of single female renters, Anuroopa Giliyal, a human rights lawyer, says this discrimination is worse in Delhi, a city known for its conservatism.

"In certain parts of Delhi, landlords refuse to give their apartments to single women," Ms. Giliyal says. "Even if they do, they put restrictions on return-home time, inviting friends, or they try to impress on [tenants] what acceptable behavior would be."

By law, landlords are not allowed to reject a tenant because she is a single woman, but the behavior persists, Giliyal says. Women don't seek intervention, probably because they feel it wouldn't solve much, she says.

For women who do find an apartment, they understand that the landlord will take on a parental role.

"It's an Indian mentality," says Sonia Kakkar, a landlord in South Delhi. "We just feel more protective. You just feel that you are responsible."

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