THE NUCLEAR FAMILY THAT HAS BEEN THE FOCUS OF SO MUCH HAND-WRINGING and moralizing in recent years was not a product of human nature but rather of a particular period in US capitalism. The family wage, designed to allow a male breadwinner to support a wife and children, was bargained for by the labor movement and accepted, though uneasily, by business leaders during the New Deal period. It allowed many working-class women, as well as their wealthier sisters, to stay home with their children; as discussed earlier, it built the middle class. The family wage—that is, material conditions—shaped our ideas of the male and female role in the workplace and in the home, in public and in private.

It also shaped the “moral values” of the period. Men took pride in their work and in their ability to provide for their families; women took pride in their children and in their caring skills that held the family together. The family wage helped to normalize certain ideas about women’s work and its value and about gender roles. If women were to be supported by their husbands, they didn’t need to make a living wage, and could be paid less when they were in the workplace—and despite the popular mythology, some women were always in the paid workforce. If women should be at home, social systems for child care were unnecessary, and in fact were examples of the state usurping the private rights of families.