ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the symbolic link between femininity and domesticity - the woman and the house - within the context of modern Norwegian society. Work is a powerful idiom of gender, a profound symbolic statement about person-hood. Through the material structure of work tasks, the symbolic meaning of gender relations is objectified and inscribed into society, as something substantial, visible and solid. The general argument so far is that within Western culture the theme of purity and pollution seems to be intimately connected to the symbolic enclosure of the female body, particularly the enclosure of woman as a sexual being. The chapter looks for the continuous link between femininity and domesticity. It suggests that this link is grounded in a deeply rooted symbolic language about the gifts of marriage. The sheltering boundaries of the feminine are themselves contained and enclosed by the bonds of marriage, making the wife and the house the exclusive point of entry for the husband.
