ABSTRACT
This chapter describes an issue that has been raised many times in feminist discussions, but attempts to cast it in a new light. It is concerned with issues that are not so fundamental in a trans-historical sense but are specific to contemporary capitalism, where the reproduction of the working class is primarily achieved through the institution of households based on the nuclear family: the family household system. It is important to note here that, from a social point of view, the reproduction of the population involves far more than what zoologists mean by the reproduction of the members of an animal species. The concern here is whether the institution of the family household can be adequate to the reproduction of a working class dependent upon wages. The family household is usually seen in social science as a group in which the members share their income and their consumption.
