Editing Homemaking (section)

=== 19th century ===
In North America, early 19th-century ideals required homemaking be the responsibility of the woman; "the wife is properly supposed to be the light and centre of the home."<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35963?msg=welcome_stranger|title=Courtship and Marriage, and the Gentle Art of Home-Making|last=Swan|first=Annie S.|date=2011-04-25|language=en}}</ref> Traditional wives who stayed home and did not work for pay were required by social ideals to create and maintain a peaceful space to provide to her husband and children. For women in a pre-modern environment, "it is the duty and privilege and solemn responsibility, which make this art of home-making more interesting and important to her than any other art in the world."<ref name=":1" /> Author of these statements, Annie Swan was not alone in the late 1800s viewpoint that women were encouraged, if not required, to maintain the home solely themselves. In 1875, [[Harper's Bazaar]] published an article outlining the duties of a housewife and the esteemed respect those duties deserve: "but if one only staid to think how countless and how onerous those duties really are, more respect would be paid to the faithful effort to perform them, and an added reverence extended to the mother who is also the housekeeper."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4732809_1428_052|title=Home Economics Archive: Research, Tradition, History|website=hearth.library.cornell.edu|access-date=2019-04-16}}</ref> Harper's Bazaar recognizes that women do the majority of the work within the home, pointing out that the work is detailed and at many times, difficult.