On Thu, 9 Feb 2012 13:25:15 -0800 (PST), Ste
wrote:

Not that I think it would be a bad thing, from a sociological
perspective, to return to the old-fashioned system of having the
husband as the breadwinner and the wife staying at home taking care of
the domestic duties.

Lol! Aside from the fact that domestic duties are not nearly as
onerous as they once were, what advantages do you see in this system?

The main advantage is that the children will be fully cared for by a
single (thus hopefully consistent) adult during their formative years.
And not only merely cared for, but also given lots of individual love
and attention of the sort that is lacking when a child is sent to a
nursery or day-care every day. I firmly believe that that is a huge
factor in producing well-behaved and well-educated adults who have
sound social values. Next is that there is far more time to spend on
non-essential household tasks that improve the quality of life for
both people. Meals, for example, are a lot better if time is spent
preparing them from fresh ingredients and cooking at the optimum rate
rather than having insufficient time to cook properly and resorting to
frozen microwave food, or ordering from the local takeaway.

As a departure from the traditional, I see no reason why the housewife
should not also undertake household repair, redecoration and other DIY
tasks, which will improve the house and save money that would
otherwise have been spent on tradesmen.

=A0Unfortunately the economy has changed to make it
impossible for a great proportion of families to be able to live on a
single income.

It is possible from a purely economic point of view - our society is
more than rich enough.

The average individual family cannot survive on a single salary
without suffering a significant loss of living standards. The
ever-rising fixed expenses such as mortgage/rent, council tax, water,
electricity, gas etc. have resulted in *very* little money left over
from the wages of an average worker, and in many cases the second
income is necessary to even be able to afford to buy a reasonable
amount of food, let alone any luxury/leisure items.

--
Cynic