With the disappearance of servitude, the number of vicarious
consumers attached to any one gentleman tends, on the whole, to
decrease. The like is of course true, and perhaps in a still
higher degree, of the number of dependents who perform vicarious
leisure for him. In a general way, though not wholly nor
consistently, these two groups coincide. The dependent who was
first delegated for these duties was the wife, or the chief wife;
and, as would be expected, in the later development of the
institution, when the number of persons by whom these duties are
customarily performed gradually narrows, the wife remains the
last. In the higher grades of society a large volume of both
these kinds of service is required; and here the wife is of
course still assisted in the work by a more or less numerous
corps of menials. But as we descend the social scale, the point
is presently reached where the duties of vicarious leisure and
consumption devolve upon the wife alone. In the communities of
the Western culture, this point is at present found among the
lower middle class.
And here occurs a curious inversion. It is a fact of common
observance that in this lower middle class there is no pretense
of leisure on the part of the head of the household.
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