[Democracy and Social Ethics by Jane Addams]@TWC D-Link bookDemocracy and Social Ethics CHAPTER IV 5/25
It has, therefore, never been organized, either by men or women, and is in an undeveloped state.
Each employer of household labor views it solely from the family standpoint.
The ethics prevailing in regard to it are distinctly personal and unsocial, and result in the unique isolation of the household employee. As industrial conditions have changed, the household has simplified, from the mediaeval affair of journeymen, apprentices, and maidens who spun and brewed to the family proper; to those who love each other and live together in ties of affection and consanguinity.
Were this process complete, we should have no problem of household employment.
But, even in households comparatively humble, there is still one alien, one who is neither loved nor loving. The modern family has dropped the man who made its shoes, the woman who spun its clothes, and, to a large extent, the woman who washes them, but it stoutly refuses to drop the woman who cooks its food and ministers directly to its individual comfort; it strangely insists that to do that would be to destroy the family life itself.
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