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Farmwives, Domesticity and Work in Late Nineteenth-Century Ireland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 September 2013

KATIE BARCLAY
KATIE BARCLAY*
Affiliation:
ARC Centre of Excellence in the History of Emotions, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, North Terrace, Adelaide SA 5005, Australiakatie.barclay@adelaide.edu.au
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Abstract:

Despite the growing significance of the ideology of domesticity and changing farming practices, late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Irish farmwives continued to have an active economic role on the farm. The continuation of their economic role reflected wider cultural beliefs that saw work as central to claims to property ownership, reinforced by the growth in the language of economic and political rights during the nineteenth century, which shaped how men and women understood work, ownership and personal rights.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , October 2013 , pp. 143 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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References

Notes

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69. ‘Matrimonial Court’, Irish Times, 21st January 1876, reports 200–250 acres; ‘Law Intelligence’, Freeman's Journal, 21st January 1876, reports 128 acres.

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71. These disputes may have reflected not so much a genuine difference of social expectations between spouses, but an attempt to demean women by making them perform work below their status.

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