Traditional Family Roles

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, households were seen as the basic unit of production, known as the family economy. Women and children relieved the household burdens by assisting men with their craft, so there was little distinction between home and economic life. Furthermore, children were nurtured and disciplined at home, strengthening familial ties. Nonetheless, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, family structures and gender roles changed. It resulted in the disruption of traditional family units from the Old Regime: Men were associated with the workforce, whereas the women were in the domestic sphere. Meanwhile, the relationship between children and their parents deteriorated due to the rise of child labor and public education. To begin with, the idea of the household as a unit of production was challenged when men were viewed as the provider of the family. With the creation of larger machines, work moved from the home to factories, where the entire production process would be contained in one area. Generally, the workers were men, who provided the manual labor required to operate machinery. In turn, this eliminated many jobs for women, who had to seek other means of employment, which paid little. This was due to a

In both the working and middle class, women were affiliated with housekeeping and child raising, a belief that originated in the upper class and nobility. Since factory work was reserved for men, women usually became maids or worked in the cottage industries for money. These limited job opportunities led to the assumption that women belonged in a traditional setting, because most of their work reduced contact with modern technologies. So while their husbands worked in factories to provide income, women remained at home, furthering the collapse of the classic family unit of the Old