HOUSEWIFE

A housewife is a women whose occupation is running or managing her family's home - caring for her children,buying,cooking and storing food for the family; buying goods that the family needs in; and making clothes for the family - and who is not employed outside the home.A housewife may also be called a stay-at-home mother or SAHM, and a househusband may be called a "male homemaker" ,stay-at-home-father or SAHD.

Traditional societies:

In societies of hunters and gatherers like the traditional society of the Australian aboriginal people, the men hunt animals for meat, and the women gather other foods such as grain, fruit and vegetables. One of the reasons for this division of labor was that it is much easier to look after a baby while gathering fruit than while hunting a fast-moving animal. Even when homes were very simple and there were few possessions, men and women did different jobs.

In rural societies, where the main work is farming, women have also taken care of gardens and animals around the house, generally helping men with heavy work when a job needed to be done quickly, usually because of the season.

Examples of the heavy work that a traditional housewife (homemaker) in a rural society would do are:

Picking fruit when it was ripe for market
Planting rice in a paddy field
Harvesting and stacking grain
Cutting hay

In rural studies, the word housewife is occasionally used for a woman who does the majority of the chores within a farm's compound as opposed to field and livestock work.

Modern society:

Regarding work, being a housewife may be seen as the opposite of being a career woman. However, a career woman may also be contrasted to someone following the "mommy track", or a shared earning/shared parenting marriage.

Regarding family size, a study of three Mexican cities came to the result that there was no significant difference in the number of children in housewife families compared to those where women worked part or full-time.

It is becoming more commonplace for the husband and wife to be employed in paid work and for both to share in the "housework" and caring for the children.However, in other families, there is still a traditional idea that housework is only a woman's job; so when a couple gets home from work, the wife works in the house while the man takes a rest, or uses the time for recreational pursuits.

Housewives are usually financially dependent on members of the household who are employed; however, people working full-time (particularly under "at-will employment" arrangements) benefit from the unwaged work provided by the housewife; otherwise the performance of such work (child care, cooking, housecleaning, teaching, transporting, etc.) in her absence would cost money.Studies have shown the percentage of women staying home does not increase consistently "as husband's earnings go up." In fact, women with the "lowest earning husbands are more likely to stay home, followed by women with the highest earning husbands.

HOUSEWIFES IN INDIA:

In a traditional Hindu family, the head of the family is the Griha Swami (Lord of the House) and his wife is the Griha Swamini (Lady of the House). The Sanskrit words Grihast and Grihasta perhaps come closest to describing the entire gamut of activities and roles undertaken by the homemaker. Grih is the Sanskrit root for house or home; Grihasta and Grihast are derivatives of this root, as is Grihastya. The couple lives in the state called Grihastashram or family system and together they nurture the family and help its members (both young and old) through the travails of life. The woman who increments the family tree (bears children) and protects those children is described as the Grihalakshmi (the wealth of the house) and Grihashoba (the glory of the house). The elders of the family are known as Grihshreshta. The husband or wife may engage in countless other activities which may be social, religious, political or economic in nature for the ultimate welfare of the family and society. However, their unified status as joint householders is the nucleus from within which they operate in society. The traditional status of a woman as a homemaker anchors them in society and provides meaning to their activities within the social, religious, political and economic framework of their world. However, as India undergoes modernisation, many women are in employment, particularly in the larger cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore where most women will work. The role of the male homemaker is not traditional in India, but it is socially accepted in urban areas. According to one sociologist's study in 2006, twelve percent of unmarried Indian men would consider being a homemaker according to a survey conducted by Business Today.One sociologist, Sushma Tulzhapurkar, called this a shift in Indian society, saying that a decade ago, "it was an unheard concept and not to mention socially unacceptable for men to give up their jobs and remain at home."However, only 22.7 percent of Indian women are part of the labor force, compared to 51.6 percent of men; thus, women are more likely to be caregivers because most do not work outside the home.

History:

Although men have generally been thought of as the primary breadwinners for families in recent history, the division of labor between men and women in traditional societies required both genders to take an active role in obtaining resources outside the domestic sphere. Prior to discovering agriculture and animal husbandry, predictable food sources were a scarce commodity. To achieve optimal nutrition during this time, it was imperative that both men and women focus their energies on hunting and gathering as many different edible foods as possible to sustain themselves on a daily basis. Lacking the technologies necessary to store and preserve food, it was critical for men and women to seek out and obtain fresh food sources almost continuously. These nomadic tribes used gender differences to their advantage, allowing men and women to use their complementary adaptations and survival strategies to find the most diverse and nutritionally complete foods available. For example, in the context of daily foraging, childcare itself was not a hindrance to women's productivity; rather, performing this task with her children both increased the overall efficiency of the activity (more people participating equals a greater yield of edible roots, berries, nuts and plants), and functioned as an important hands-on lesson in survival skills for each child. By sharing the burden of daily sustenance – and developing specialized gender niches – humans not only ensured their continued survival, but also paved the way for later technologies to evolve and grow through experience.

In the 1960s in western countries, it was becoming more accepted for a woman to work until she got married, when it was widely held that she should stop work and be a housewife. Many women believed that this was not treating men and women equally and that women should do whatever jobs they were able to do, whether they were married or not. The Feminine Mystique, a 1963 book by Betty Friedan which is widely credited with sparking the beginning of second-wave feminism in the United States, discussed among other things the lives of housewives from around the United States who were unhappy despite living in material comfort and being married with children.At this time, many women were becoming more educated. As a result of this increased education, some women were able to earn more than their husbands. In very rare cases, the husband would remain at home to raise their young children while the wife worked. In 1964 a US stamp was issued honoring homemakers for the 50th anniversary of the Smith-Lever Act.

About 50% of married US women in 1978 continued to work after giving birth, while in 1997, the number was 61%. The number of housewives increased in the 2000s. With the 2008 financial crisis, a decrease in average income made two incomes more attractive, and the percentage of married US women who kept working after they giving birth increased to 69% by 2009.As of 2014, according to the Pew Research Center, more than one in four mothers are stay at home in the United States.

In the late 20th century, in many countries it became harder for a family to live on a single wage. Subsequently, many women were required to return to work following the birth of their children. However, the number of male homemakers began gradually increasing in the late 20th century, especially in developed Western nations. In 2010, the number of male homemakers had reached its highest point of 2.2 million. Though the role is subject to many stereotypes, and men may have difficulties accessing parenting benefits, communities, and services targeted at mothers, it became more socially acceptable by the 2000s.The male homemaker was more regularly portrayed in the media by the 2000s, especially in the United States. However, in some regions of the world the male homemaker remains culturally unacceptable.