ABSTRACT
Work and the workplace have dominated our conceptions of the ways social relations and institutions are constituted and reproduced. All else, it seems, has been regarded as secondary and as a reflection of the primary relations established through work. Certainly this situation has begun to change, not least through debates on gender and ethnicity, but it is clear we still have a long way to go. An underlying argument of this chapter is that it is essential to think beyond the workplace to other settings (or locales) where social interaction takes place and where social relations are composed and contextualised. There are clearly any number of these including the school, club and pub but there can be little doubt that the home must rank high amongst them and perhaps stands alongside the workplace as a key social setting. Elsewhere, both separately and together, Peter Saunders and I have argued the importance of the home as a crucial structuring medium with respect to the individual, the household and society (Saunders, 1984: Williams, 1986: Saunders and Williams, forthcoming) and the purpose of this chapter is to extend that work through a consideration of the home through history (1700-1901). The chapter is therefore primarily concerned with examining the ways in which both the physical setting and social roles of the home have changed over time and the significance these shifts have had for changing social relations in general and class, status and gender in particular. Given the possible scope of this subject matter it must be recognised that this is a
preliminary survey. The chapter begins with a brief discussion on the salient themes and then proceeds via an historical examination of the home to develop an understanding of the constitutive roles of this arena. The chapter ends with a brief concluding summary.1
