Market Value of Home Labor
By Helen G. Putnam, M. D., LL. D.
If the labors which the great majority of women are putting in homes were estimated at market rates like those of men—and domestic arts are coming to have high values—husband’s incomes in a great majority of cases could not secure either the quality or the quantity. This, the largest single field of industries, is not enumerated by the census. Accurate valuation would put an end to the shibboleth, “The husband supports the wife”; would give self-respect to millions of women, and so inspire them; would remove the unsound impression of women’s comparative irresponsibility and men’s comparative dependability, whose psychologic effect is disastrous.