This article is about the plight of a housewife, who is described as a mere worker who is unwaged. According to this article, marriage is simply a labor of love for women. The article rejects the notion that marriage is based on love, particularly in the case of women. Housework has been made to be a role of women and they have accepted it (Federici, 1975). The article states that house chores have been made to be a natural attribute of the women. This idea is demonstrated by the fact that even mothers train their daughters the ways of becoming good and effective workers when they get married (Federici, 1975). The only difference between normal work and housework is that the latter is unwaged.
The concept that was very novel to me in this article is that women literally do work for their men and children, but are not paid. The article uses this concept to reject any notion that marriage is based on love. Therefore, apparently marriage would only be regarded as based on real love if there would sharing of the housework between the men and women. Since there is sharing of housework, men are taken as the capitals, who use women as their workers under the disguise of marriage and love.
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The point that I disagree with in this article is the assumption that all marriages are not based on love. There are exceptional marriages that are premised on real love in the society. Moreover, there are men who assist their women in carrying out the house chores. It is, thus, not right to assume that all women are married as workers, but not companions. Additionally, a lot of the ideas like women as house workers do not still exist in the modern world. People in the world have become highly civilized and women have been given treatment equal to the men.
The question that the class needs to consider regarding the reading is whether there exists a marriage that is based on true love, where women are not treated as mere house workers.
References
Federici, S. (1975). 4. Wages against housework. Retrieved from https://caringlabor.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/federici-wages-against-housework.pdf on 6/1/2017.
