Search Results

Household Management

Jane Whittle and Elizabeth Griffiths

in Consumption and Gender in the Early Seventeenth-Century Household: The World of Alice Le Strange

Gentry households were large and complex institutions. Ensuring that a large house, family and employees were provided with food and other requirements was a complex business. Accordingly the process ... More

Gentry households were large and complex institutions. Ensuring that a large house, family and employees were provided with food and other requirements was a complex business. Accordingly the process of consumption begins not with purchases, but with management and planning. This chapter explores the household and estate management activities of Lady Alice Le Strange, and considers the degree to which activities such as account-keeping gave women power as well as responsibility within the household, and the degree to which those household management activities stretched into farm management and the estate. Comparisons are drawn between Alice’s activities, models of the ideal housewife offered by the advice literature, and the activities of gentlewomen from two other Norfolk families, the Townshends and Hobarts.Less

The Origins and Scope of Microeconomics

John P. Burkett

in Microeconomics: Optimization, Experiments, and Behavior

This chapter examines the history, origins, and scope of microeconomics. The term “economics” was derived from the Greek words oikos meaning house and nomos meaning managing, thus the original ... More

This chapter examines the history, origins, and scope of microeconomics. The term “economics” was derived from the Greek words oikos meaning house and nomos meaning managing, thus the original definition of economics was household management. Microeconomics is the branch of economics that deals with how individuals and organizations make decisions about allocation of scarce resources and how these individuals and organizations, interacting in markets, determine relative prices, wages, and rents. It is often considered as the foundation on which macroeconomics builds.Less

Dealing with money in low-to moderate-income couples: insights from individual interviews

Sirin Sung and Fran Bennett

in Social Policy Review 19: Analysis and debate in social policy, 2007

This chapter offers an analysis of a recent Economic and Social Research Council-funded project considering the difficulties associated with researching the complexities of the management of ... More

This chapter offers an analysis of a recent Economic and Social Research Council-funded project considering the difficulties associated with researching the complexities of the management of household money and budgeting within long-term heterosexual relationships. The study interviewed heterosexual couples living on means-tested benefits or tax credits and considered how they received, organised, and used such income, and how this affected gender relations and inequalities within the household. The chapter is organised as follows. The second section outlines existing typologies of household financial management and research on gendered patterns of money management. The third section presents the main findings on money management from the study in the light of the existing literature. The themes of this section include complexity, continuity in traditional gendered patterns of money management, and teasing out the relationship between managing money day to day and control over household finances; it looks at several potential indicators of financial control. The final section concludes by discussing some of the issues that emerged in a wider context.Less

Managing Health and Household from Afar

Elaine Leong

in Recipes and Everyday Knowledge: Medicine, Science, and the Household in Early Modern England

Focused on the St. John family, this chapter places collecting and codifying recipe knowledge within the frame of household management and planning in two ways. First, it explores long-term ... More

Focused on the St. John family, this chapter places collecting and codifying recipe knowledge within the frame of household management and planning in two ways. First, it explores long-term provisioning within early modern households and situates medicine making alongside the production of foods and other processed goods. It contends that the juxtaposition of food and medicine in so many recipe books was a product of the multifaceted role taken on by early modern housewives and household managers, who moved seamlessly across a wide range of activities. Our narratives of household medicine and science thus must also take this more holistic approach. Second, this chapter connects the daily production of food and medicine with larger economies of patronage and gift exchange. Looking after the “health” of a household went beyond offering cures for coughs and colds to include vigilant monitoring and maintenance of the household’s social and financial health.Less

Married Life

Ulinka Rublack

in The Crimes of Women in Early Modern Germany

This chapter explores married life, showing some of the most hidden aspects of communal history by looking into the lived textures of marriages in crisis, and the despair of couples who knew that ... More

This chapter explores married life, showing some of the most hidden aspects of communal history by looking into the lived textures of marriages in crisis, and the despair of couples who knew that only death could part them. The mass of early modern couples had to struggle with material problems and were more likely to quarrel in turn. Survival depended on hard daily labour and careful household management. Quite simply, one sex needed the other, and therefore women had ample scope in which to assert themselves. They retained a feudal-contractual understanding of marriage: if a husband failed to provide protection, peace, and nourishment, a wife would no longer feel obliged to remain faithful and obedient. Contrary to this, Christian morals held that fidelity had to be maintained because God had created marriage as the basis of social order.Less

A Woman’s Place: Marriage and Homemaking in the Early Domestic Press

Siobhán McIlvanney

in Figurations of the Feminine in the Early French Women's Press, 1758-1848

This chapter examines those early French women’s journals that promote a domestic or family-oriented figuration of femininity, providing information on the necessary skills to engage successfully in ... More

This chapter examines those early French women’s journals that promote a domestic or family-oriented figuration of femininity, providing information on the necessary skills to engage successfully in marriage and/or motherhood, or on more practical aspects relating to ‘good housekeeping’ generally. The chapter traces changes to the legal and social positions on marriage and motherhood during this period, changes which help account for the more ‘modern’ post-revolutionary emphasis on women’s emotional fulfilment put forward in contemporary journals such as the remarkably radical Courier de l’hymen ou journal des dames (1791) – a journal which also provides the first ‘problem page’ in French women’s magazines. This chapter suggests that the journals examined here have much in common with contemporary women’s magazines generally, whether by their inclusion of a recipe rubric or dressmaking patterns - as is the case with the remaining two domestic journals, Le Journal des femmes (1832-37) and Le Conseiller des dames (1847-92), which point up French women’s growing association with the domestic realm and their role as family educator. These journals provide cookery tips and recipes, advice on childcare, information on making clothes, general practical shortcuts relating to domestic science, as well as the usual staple selection of fictional excerpts.Less

In Search of Wives

Peter Robb

in Sex and Sensibility: Richard Blechynden's Calcutta Diaries, 1791-1822

This chapter explores the idea of marriage during the late eighteenth century among colonials in India. It explains that under the prevailing code during this period, wives deserved particular ... More

This chapter explores the idea of marriage during the late eighteenth century among colonials in India. It explains that under the prevailing code during this period, wives deserved particular attention and required respect. A gentleman’s marriage assumed companionship and hence parity in class and religion: it offered household management and social graces for the husband in return for protection and comfort for the wife. This chapter also describes the case of Eduardo Tiretta, a sixty-seven year civil architect, who married a fourteen year old girl from Serampore.Less

Print and a Culture of Prevention

Sandra Cavallo and Tessa Storey

in Healthy Living in Late Renaissance Italy

This chapter explores the role of print in establishing a widespread culture of preventive health care. The writing, editing, and translating of printed vernacular regimens are contextualized in an ... More

This chapter explores the role of print in establishing a widespread culture of preventive health care. The writing, editing, and translating of printed vernacular regimens are contextualized in an increasingly literate society characterized by extensive book production and sophisticated distribution networks. The physicality of the book, including typographical strategies targeting a wider readership, and the long life of these texts, demonstrated by signatures and marginalia, are discussed. Authorship and the role of publishing in medical careers are noted. The chapter then focuses on the dissemination of preventive health advice through other genres: books of secrets, household management texts, and conduct manuals. Shifts in the social configuration in which these genres appeared are also analysed: the flourishing of court life and the changing ideals and identities of the urban nobility led to the codification of behaviours and expressions of virtue which included prioritizing one's health and emphasizing bodily decorum and home cleanliness.Less

The Cells of the Social Body

Greg Anderson

in The Realness of Things Past: Ancient Greece and Ontological History

Within their cosmic ecology, the Athenians took it for granted that their polis was a “communion” (koinonia) of households, so in their experience there could be no equivalents of our modern ... More

Within their cosmic ecology, the Athenians took it for granted that their polis was a “communion” (koinonia) of households, so in their experience there could be no equivalents of our modern distinctions between state and society or political and social realms. Households (oikoi) functioned as the cells of the social body, such that the vitality of the parts was inseparable from the vitality of the whole. Thus, the human “government” of the polis began not with assembly meetings but with the management of its constituent oikoi, which were the primary means of life and livelihood for all Athenians. The Athenians also took it for granted that the gods had deliberately designed males and females to play different, but complementary roles in the reproduction of social being. Women were expected to serve as “partners” to their husbands in the business of household management, performing a wide range of functions that were essential to the lives of their oikoi and therefore to the life of their polis. While they may not look like “citizens” to us, they were considered full members of the polis (politides) at the time. Terms like “patriarchy” and “misogyny,” so common in the modern literature, are accordingly unhelpful when describing gender relations in classical Athens.Less

Practicalities, Utility, and the Everydayness of Consumption

Jon Stobart and Mark Rothery

in Consumption and the Country House

This chapter builds on the growing interest in everyday consumption and on ideas of pleasure and comfort as shaping consumption patterns to explore various aspects of the country house as a lived ... More

This chapter builds on the growing interest in everyday consumption and on ideas of pleasure and comfort as shaping consumption patterns to explore various aspects of the country house as a lived space. It begins with an analysis of spending on everyday goods (from coal and candles to soap and sugar), which formed a large proportion of overall spending. Both are placed in the context of broader debates about household management and into the materiality of ‘mundane’ spaces within the country house. The focus then switches to an examination of the ways in which physical and emotional comfort shaped decisions about what to buy and what to retain. The latter is especially important in terms of the significance of old goods—both as emotional comfort and symbols of family.Less

‘Real drudgery’: House Work¹

Emma Griffin

in Bread Winner: An Intimate History of the Victorian Economy

This chapter argues that the work of the house — the ‘housework’ — was not simply about cleaning, enhancing, and generally improving the domestic environment. Before 1914, it involved the performance ... More

This chapter argues that the work of the house — the ‘housework’ — was not simply about cleaning, enhancing, and generally improving the domestic environment. Before 1914, it involved the performance of more fundamental tasks necessary to sustain life. The home called for a daily round of collecting water, purchasing and preparing food, lighting and clearing fires, cleaning and repairing clothes, and looking after children. In rural areas, firewood needed to be collected as well. The home could not function without water, fuel, and food, and obtaining these things involved hard, physical work and took many hours daily. Marriage and housekeeping might be an exciting prospect, but the reality of running a house was not.Less

A Silver Merchant’s Daughter

Andrew Talle

in Beyond Bach: Music and Everyday Life in the Eighteenth Century

Chapter three uses the musical life of Christiane Sibÿlla Bose, a young woman who lived near the Bach family in Leipzig, as a means of exploring the lives of women of her time and place. Ms. Bose ... More

Chapter three uses the musical life of Christiane Sibÿlla Bose, a young woman who lived near the Bach family in Leipzig, as a means of exploring the lives of women of her time and place. Ms. Bose played the keyboard recreationally and was a close friend of J. S. Bach’s wife, Anna Magdalena. Women typically spent time managing the acquisition of food, clothing, and medical care for their households. Playing the keyboard was a means by which they could make themselves more attractive to potential suitors. Pursuing professional careers as musicians, however, was generally discouraged. Ms. Bose likely viewed Anna Magdalena Bach as a role model, not only as a wife and mother, but also as a woman who had transcended cultural prejudices to pursue a successful career as a musician.Less

1940

Werner Heisenberg and Elisabeth Heisenberg

Anna Maria Hirsch-Heisenberg (ed.)

in My Dear Li: Correspondence, 1937-1946

This chapter features letters from June 9 to October 12, 1940—which cover the early years of World War II and the burdens that the conflict has placed upon the Heisenberg family. The war—although its ... More

This chapter features letters from June 9 to October 12, 1940—which cover the early years of World War II and the burdens that the conflict has placed upon the Heisenberg family. The war—although its progress is constantly couched in terms of victory—is demanding concessions. Official decrees and regulations are on the increase: dwellings have to be modified for air-raid protection; cars may be used only with special permits; coal, groceries, and many other necessities of daily life are no longer available without eligibility coupons. Thus life now includes the tending of a new vegetable garden, holding in reserve whatever will keep, exchange-of-goods excursions, and numerous appointments with bureaucrats. The letters of the couple during this time are replete with such daily concerns.Less