Housewife

A housewife (also known as a homekeeper) is a woman whose work is running or managing her family's home—caring for her children; buying, cooking, and storing food for the family; buying goods that the family needs for everyday life; housekeeping, cleaning and maintaining the home; and making, buying and/or mending clothes for the family—and who is not employed outside the home (a career woman). A housewife who has children may be called a stay-at-home mother or mom and a househusband may be called a male homemaker or stay-at-home father.Here lies a poor woman who was always tired,She lived in a house where help wasn't hired:Her last words on earth were: 'Dear friends, I am goingTo where there's no cooking, or washing, or sewing,For everything there is exact to my wishes,For where they don't eat there's no washing of dishes.I'll be where loud anthems will always be ringing,But having no voice I'll be quit of the singing.Don't mourn for me now, don't mourn for me never,I am going to do nothing for ever and ever.' A housewife (also known as a homekeeper) is a woman whose work is running or managing her family's home—caring for her children; buying, cooking, and storing food for the family; buying goods that the family needs for everyday life; housekeeping, cleaning and maintaining the home; and making, buying and/or mending clothes for the family—and who is not employed outside the home (a career woman). A housewife who has children may be called a stay-at-home mother or mom and a househusband may be called a male homemaker or stay-at-home father. Webster's Dictionary defines a housewife as a married woman who is in charge of her household. The British Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (1901) defines a housewife as 'the mistress of a household; a female domestic manager; a pocket sewing kit'. (A small sewing kit is sometimes called a housewife or hussif.) Throughout history, women have usually worked for pay, either by contributing to farming and other family-owned businesses, or by working for outside employers. Some feminists and non-feminist economists (particularly proponents of historical materialism, the methodological approach of Marxist historiography) note that the value of housewives' work is ignored in standard formulations of economic output, such as GDP or employment figures. A housewife typically works many unpaid hours a week and often depends on income from her husband's work for financial support. In societies of hunters and gatherers, like the traditional society of the Australian aboriginal people, the men often hunt animals for meat while the women gather other foods such as grain, fruit and vegetables. One of the reasons for this division of labor is that it is much easier to look after a baby while gathering food than while hunting a fast-moving animal. Even when homes were very simple, and there were few possessions to maintain, men and women did different jobs. In rural societies where the main source of work is farming, women have also taken care of gardens and animals around the house, generally helping men with heavy work when a job needed to be done quickly, usually because of the season.