ABSTRACT
IN D W E L L I N G O N T H E importance of home, work and association as min-imal components of masculine identity, I have doubtless laboured the obvious. My reason for doing so is that I have wanted to prepare the ground for the more interesting claim that the precise character of masculine formation at any time is largely determined by the
constant emphasis on the ‘separation of spheres’ is misleading, partly because men’s privileged ability to pass freely between the public and the private was integral to the social order. And some notion of complementarity is always implied by that key nineteenthcentury indicator of masculinity achieved, ‘independence’, combining as it did dignified work, sole maintenance of the family, and free association on terms of equality with other men. But it’s much rarer to see these elements considered as any such system must be, by contradiction and instability. Yet this, it seems to, me, is one of the most promising ways of pinning down the social dynamics of masculinity.
