Pretty much all that is
here insisted on is that, as regards these amenities of life, the
housewife's efforts are under the guidance of traditions that
have been shaped by the law of conspicuously wasteful expenditure
of time and substance. If beauty or comfort is achieved-and it is
a more or less fortuitous circumstance if they are-they must be
achieved by means and methods that commend themselves to the
great economic law of wasted effort. The more reputable,
"presentable" portion of middle-class household paraphernalia
are, on the one hand, items of conspicuous consumption, and on
the other hand, apparatus for putting in evidence the vicarious
leisure rendered by the housewife.
The requirement of vicarious consumption at the hands of the wife
continues in force even at a lower point in the pecuniary scale
than the requirement of vicarious leisure. At a point below which
little if any pretense of wasted effort, in ceremonial cleanness
and the like, is observable, and where there is
assuredly no conscious attempt at ostensible leisure, decency
still requires the wife to consume some goods conspicuously for
the reputability of the household and its head. So that, as the
latter-day outcome of this evolution of an archaic institution,
the wife, who was at the outset the drudge and chattel of the
man, both in fact and in theory -- the producer of goods for him
to consume -- has become the ceremonial consumer of goods which
he produces.
Pages:
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119