Common housewifes probably never realized their duties as homemaker would have extended far beyond raising their children and cleaning the house. Indeed, as many historians and sociologists have suggested, housewifery, as we know it today, is an invention of the industrial revolution.
It wasn’t until this very century that women began staying home with the sole purpose of raising children and housekeeping. Previously, women actively worked alongside their husbands, and the family was an economic unit. Even the bourgeoisie had a role other than child rearing - in fact, the bourgeois women relied on servants to provide most child rearing services for them, while they fulfilled their philanthropic roles.
Once production was moved outside the home, wives were left behind to care for their children. They might have moved outside along with their husbands, but a shortage in servants gave all but the rich little choice.
Today, we are left with the notions that children need constant care and attention, and that women are "naturally" suited to provide this care and nurturance; ideas, no doubt, that arose from the boredom women experienced once their time was freed up to do nothing but raise their offspring. With nothing else to do, women gradually focused more and more attention on their children, becoming "specialists" in child rearing.
But have these changes done our society good? While those pushing for traditional "family values" advocate housewifery as the best choice a woman can make, there seems to be a fallacy in their argument; for the so-called loss of morality occurred less than a few decades after women began adopting housewifery as full time careers. With each generation, the children of full time housewives became more and more dependant on their mothers, and although it might be argued that the revolution in morals occurred a full 50 years after housewifery became the norm, society could not witnessed these effects until the first generation of children raised by mothers who knew of no other way were full grown.
Many people point to the 1960s as the turning point in society (and lest us not forget that it is the housewife who raised these children who so revolutionized society). It was the time when women sought change from their so-called traditional role.
This turning point was not surprising, at least in retrospect. The loss of productivity within the household and lack of adult companionship led to a general restlessness, and women began to seek change. The result was a demand for choice and increased freedom. With these fundamental tools, divorce became an option for women, who were otherwise trapped in bad marriages. Meanwhile, society made few attempts to make choosing to stay within a marriage easier, and even fewer to encourage women to find ways to feel like a contributing member of society, on their own terms.
Although many parents today claim that child rearing is a satisfying experience, it is probably not entirely satisfying in itself for most people. In fact, experts suggest that housewifery is only the best choice a woman can make if it is something she desires herself. It is more detrimental to the well being of the child, studies suggest, if a career-oriented woman opts to stay home because of societal pressure than if she enters the paid labor force while her children attend daycare.
History shows us that satisfaction and a feeling of productivity are prerequisites to a happy and stable society. If this means that women need to leave their short-lived roles as housewives, then perhaps this is a change we should not fear, but embrace.
