The newly formed middle class of the nineteenth century is the most overwhelming indication of the separation of spheres. With industrialization on the rise, clear gender roles emerged as the social structure of the family changed. Whereas in the working class both women and men contributed to the family income, in middle-class families the men worked for wages while their wives stayed home to manage the household. This gave women of the middle class little opportunity to participate in the public sphere. A clear indicator of middle-class status was the ability to keep any number of servants. Most families had only one servant. Nevertheless, it was the women of the household that directed their work in their homes. This was the contribution they made to their household. The occupation of homemaker, though valuable to the family, cemented their lives in the private sphere. Mothers were expected to provide for the education of their children. It was because of this ideology that middle-class women were able to be educated in math, literature, history, and foreign language, and to teach their children in turn. As daughters grew up, the limited education they received was the basis for wives and mothers to properly fulfill their roles, teaching their children as the cycle of domesticity repeated itself.

In the realm of home or family life there are two things in particular that irk me; grocery shopping and folding laundered clothes. Obviously most of us can’t live without having to do one or both of them on occasion. So I’m not about to propose a way around it. But I did have a fleeting moment today about possible robotic or engineering models which one day might rid us of those singularly punishing necessities. I mean to say, we’ve invented ways to do countless other things about the house without having to infringe upon the evening highball or the afternoon nap. And they’ve all been in the cause I presume of improving la condition humaine. Yet while there have been moderate advances to surmount these hurdles such as on-line grocery shopping/delivery and synthetics that preserve a crease, the obstacles are predominantly static. The beacon to grocery shop or to fold clothes continues to instill fundamental remorse.

Nor should we be alarmed or penitent to confess the remorse.  Grocery shopping and folding laundered clothes are by any standard unempowering. Everyone can associate the word “domestic “ with the Latin domus for house. But did you recognize the the deeper etymology from Greek domos meaning “master/lord” as in dominus “master of a household” or the more immediate allusion to “dominion”. It is but a skip and a jump to the further derivative of “domestic servant”.  And if you care to consider something more esoteric, there’s the Lithuanian  dimstis “enclosed court, property” suggestive for example of “homestead”. This narrower interpretation of domesticity has even been advanced on occasion to suggest an avenue by which to counter homophobia.

In the result domesticity is a trait clouded with innuendo. And as I indicated above, not entirely a faultless characterization. Domesticity by my account is not what l’d unhesitatingly identify as the most challenging intellectual pursuit. Now don’t misinterpret what I’m saying. My slur is not directed at the products of the effort – cooking or presentable clothes – but rather at the monotony that attends the introduction to them.  I’m the first to applaud a fine meal or sartorial success. But does getting there have to be so dissolving! If indeed domesticity is to imply the modern narrative of affection for home and material comforts – not merely chores and housework – then maybe it’s time we thought about unchaining ourselves from these outdated habits of grocery shopping and folding clothes. Nor do I imagine the pursuit is contaminated by drinking water from a tower rather than a well.  We can maintain our domestic values without compromising their source. In this I am reminded as well that dinner without white linen and sterling silverware can still be adequately tasty. We simply need to find new ways of doing things.

And let me be clear, homelife isn’t a way of doing business. It is a highly personal, emotionally interactive conglomerate of art, heart and psychology. There are however in my opinion less mundane manners in which to share domesticity than through the portals of grocery shopping and folding clothes.