After my initial amusement at reading this article Faye sent me, I started to wonder just how much has changed in the 53 years since it was published. Are men any less masters of their homes? Are woman less subservient to the will and wishes of their husbands than they were half a century ago?
To understand the thinking behind this article, it is necessary to understand the context in which it was written. The Second World War was still fresh in people's minds and they were still feeling its effects in terms of rebuilding economies, homes and families. Women, who during the war had worked in manufacturing and service jobs in support of the war effort, gave up their jobs for the men returning from war and were confined to their homes raising their children from the post-war baby boom. Career opportunities for women were limited as jobs were given back to the men and they became dependant on their husbands for domestic security and their and their children's livelihoods.
In such an environment women were bound to feel tied to their husbands and subject to their husbands' wills. They faced the choice of keeping their husbands happy, and by extension maintaining a harmonious and happy home, or the stark reality of having to fend for themselves and their children in what was truly at that stage a man's world.
These days there is a far more egalitarian domestic system in Western households. Influential female voices since the Sixties, women competing educationally and professionally with men, and financial strains on the regular family, which have led to women seeking places and being accepted in the workplace, have resulted in wives being far more independent of their husbands than ever before. An inter-dependent relationship between spouses, financially and domestically, has developed and these days both are trying to keep each other happy and consider each other's pressures.
In today's Western world, the phrase "master of the house" is seldom, if ever, uttered, simply because that position is up for grabs. However, I still find myself questioning whether not saying the words has actually led to a real change in the situation. Are men actually no longer the masters of their houses, or is it that we just don't say that any more? Are wives actually any less subject to their husbands' decisions and wills, if they want to stay in their relationships, than they were before?
Our dialogue may have changed, but have our thoughts and actions?
Dion Marc Delport
24 September 2008