Women's Work and the Family in Nineteenth-Century Europe

Abstract

There is a great deal of confusion about the history of women's work outside the home and about the origin and meaning of women's traditional place within the home. Most interpretations of either of these questions depend on assumptions about the other. Usually, women at home in any time period are assumed to be non-productive, the antithesis of women at work. In addition, most general works on women and the family assume that the history of women's employment, like the history of women's legal and political rights, can be understood as a gradual evolution from a traditional place at home to a modern position in the world of work. Some historians cite changes in employment opportunities created by industrialization as the precursors of legal emancipation. Others stress political rights as the source of improved economic status. In both cases, legal-political and economic 'emancipation' usually are linked to changes in cultural values. Thus William Goode, whose World Revolution and Family Patterns makes temporal and geographic comparisons of family patterns, remarks on what he calls 'the statistically unusual status of western women today, that is their high participation in work outside of the home'. He maintains that previous civilizations did not use female labor because of restrictive cultural definitions. 'I believe', Goode writes, 'that the crucial crystallizing variable-i.e. the necessary but not sufficient cause of the betterment of the western woman's position-was ideological: the gradual logical philosophical extension to women of originally Protestant notions about the rights and responsibilities of the individual undermined the traditional idea of "women's proper place".' 1 Many people have helped us with comments on earlier drafts of this essay. We especially wish to thank Susan Rogers,

Unequal Family Lives

“…European scholars associate similar increases in parental investment in children with greater parental affection (Lesthaeghe 2010), and view rural families as lagging behind urban ones in embracing the new values (Scott and Tilly 1975). On both continents, the shifts in "sentiment" associated with expressive individualism, the move away from arranged marriages, greater female status, and greater investment in children unfolded over centuries (Stone 1977, p. 198).…”

“…On both continents, the shifts in "sentiment" associated with expressive individualism, the move away from arranged marriages, greater female status, and greater investment in children unfolded over centuries (Stone 1977, p. 198). In Europe, for example, women's ability to devote themselves to the home came earlier in Britain, with only 9% of married women in the labor market at the turn of the twentieth century, in contrast to France, where 38% of married women remained in the labor market during the same time period (Scott and Tilly 1975). Cherlin observes in this volume that the American working class acquired the ability to keep wives and children out of the workplace and to invest more heavily in children's education only after World War II (Cherlin, Chapter 3).…”

Inequality in Pre-School Provision: A Geographical Perspective

“…The textile industries in which women were highly represented were overtake by mechanisation ani the growth of heavy engineerirg industries from which women were largely excluded. (The relative importance of these factors -ideological changes and material changes in econordc structures -and the irter-relationships between these factors has been the source of enormous controversy (see Scott and Tilley, 1975) Thus, at the begimirg of the twentieth century England had begun to provide an educational service for all children whose parents chose to use it.…”

Keseharian Isteri Nelayan: Studi Antropologi Tentang Pola Nafkah Pada Komunitas Nelayan Di Nagari Tiku Selatan, Kecamatan Tanjung Mutiara, Kabupaten Agam

“…Di lain pihak, terdapat suatu kenyataan secara umum bahwa posisi wanita di desa-desa nelayan di Indonesia khususnya dan negara sedang W berkembang pada umumnya, posisi mereka termarginalisasi. Scott (2008) Dalam penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan penelitian kualitatif. Dalam penelitian kualitatif yang menjadi sasaran kajian adalah kehidupan sosial atau masyarakat sebagai satu kesatuan atau sebuah kesatuan yang menyeluruh.…”