ABSTRACT
Charlotte Perkins Gilman in Women and Economics presented an unique analysis of economic relationships within the home. Gilman was an eminently successful writer who reached a large popular audience in her day, promulgating ideas on changes in the economics of family relations to her readers. This chapter examines Gilman’s ideas on the nineteenth century economic structure of the male-female relationship within the family and how this structure was an impediment to the progress of society. It presents some of Gilman’s proposed socioeconomic changes, and analyzes Gilman’s proposals to show their relevance to modern conditions. Gilman believed that the social structure which made the family the premier economic unit in society caused marriage to take on the appearance of a market place. Gilman pointed out that the economic market for marriage implies value to the married state and denies it to other states: the mature unmarried female, the old maid, and the unmarried “loose” female, the vicious woman.
