ABSTRACT
The idealised image of domesticity and familial life remains an enormously powerful discourse. Outside the realms of feminist theory, the dominant imagery of the home is still almost invariably set in benign terms. According to Lee Rainwater there is
a long history … of the house as a place of safety … the place of maximum exercise of individual autonomy … The house acquires a sacred character from its complex intertwining with the self and from the symbolic character it has as a representation of the family. 1
