User:Henshena/Homemaking

19th century

In North America, early 19th-century ideals required homemaking be the responsibility of the woman; "the wife is properly supposed to be the light and center of the home." Traditional wives who stayed home and did not work were required by social ideals to create and maintain a peaceful space to provide to her husband and children. For women in a pre-modern environment, "it is the duty and privilege and solemn responsibility, which make this art of home-making more interesting and important to her than any other art in the world." Author of these statements, Annie Swan was not alone in the late 1800s viewpoint that women were encouraged, if not required, to maintain the home solely themselves. In 1875, Harper's Bazaar published an article outlining the duties of a housewife and the esteemed respect those duties deserve: "but if one only staid to think how countless and how onerous those duties really are, more respect would be paid to the faithful effort to perform the, and an added reverence extended to the mother who is also the housekeeper." Although Harper's Bazaar recognizes that women do the majority of the work within the home, the article suggests that the work is detailed and at many times, difficult. As the tools in the home got better it ironically made more work for the wives because homemaking expectations rose.

20th century

The 20th century began with similar homemaking roles as the 19th; however, A shift happened during this time. Women moved more into the public sphere and the workforce. Also during this time the ideal of the "family man" was created. Men were expected to spend their time after work at home with their families instead of at a bar drinking with their buddies. The century concluded with a much different perception. In the late 1990s, marriage consisted in most cases of both wife and husband participating in homemaking. Darlene Piña and Vern Bengtson who are anthropologists and professors at the University of Southern California, extensively researched marriage dynamics and household labor in the late twentieth century. They concluded that "all wives benefit equally by their husbands' greater involvement in household labor." The division of labor within the home promotes a healthy relationship between husband and wife, concluding that the likelihood of increased happiness within marriage is vastly improved when homemaking is shared with the husband. West and Zimmerman, concluded an analysis of over 487 couples and found that "women were rewarded for performing feminine behaviors, such as housework, whereas men receive positive reinforcement for engaging in masculine tasks, such breadwinning."

In contrast, a study performed by Hochschild in 1989, concluded that even when wives contributed more than 50% of the household income they often still performed more household labor than their husbands. Hochschild's study directly debunked the previous theory that women performed housework because they contributed significantly less to household income. Instead, the results of the study indicated that even in marriage dynamics where women contributed more than half of the household income, they still completed the vast majority of homemaking tasks.

Married women who are economically and emotionally dependent on their husbands are less likely to report the division of household labor as unfair. This significant group of married women felt that household labor reinforced their female gender identity and connection to femininity.

The dynamic of Homemaking shifted as modern American's moved into suburbs. American middle class families moved into communities of single family homes that were just a short drive from factories and offices where the men worked during the twentieth century. The community structure in these areas restricted women's ability to be in the workforce much because they were designed for women to be "homebound". Both stay at home mothers/housewives and working women were expected to perform the housekeeping and child care duties while the men worked/or were away at work.

Servants[edit]

Main articles: Maid, Butler, and Domestic worker

Homemakers in the upper class may manage household workers or "domestic workers" usually the women of the house. Indigenous people have been used as servants or domestic workers starting after the civil war till well into the 20th century. They got very low wages and while doing hard labor such as cooking, cleaning, and laundry. Women in this occupation were not treated fairly in most cases. Some of the conditions made it hard to be efficient because the home was not ran like a business according to an anonymous source from "Experiences of a Hired Girl". Chinese, Asian, Native American, and African American women mainly made up this occupation because of lack of opportunity in this country at this time. It was common in the early 1900s for white middle class women to hire Native Americans and other races of women as domestic servants in order to conserve them to American culture.

Management

Household management by the homemaker is the act of overseeing the organizational, financial, and day-to-day operations of a house or estate. It differs from housekeeping, which consists of the physical maintenance and cleaning of a house. This task was generally handled by the women of the house. During the 19th and 20th century women of middle or high class families who could afford domestic workers took on the role of managing the household.