한국 근대 ‘주부’ 개념의 정착과 주부 역할의 변화 양상-1920~30년대를 중심으로

Abstract

This paper looked at the roles, responsibilities and authority of housewives from 1920s to 1930s in relation to women’s education, domestic labor and economic rights. At first, educated women were called them housewives when they had all the initiative in the family after they got married. In the 1920s, housewives became everyday words and were commonly used to mean “owner’s wife” and “woman’s owner.” But housewives still meant educated women. In the mid-1920s, however, feminists in the socialist women’s liberation movement criticized women’s education to create a good wife and a housewife. However, from the 1930s, the goal of women’s education again became to foster housewives. And even after graduating from school, women had to receive a more advanced education for housewives. Since the late 1930s, ‘housewife’ has become the same meaning as ‘daughter-in-law.’ Now the owners of the family were not newly married housewives but mother-in-law. This is because the younger generation could not make independent families even if they were married. The most important task for educated housewives was efficient housework. However, the rationalization of domestic labor was in fact urging housewives to work alone. The housewife had to do all the housework she had with the householders and family members by herself now. Housewives were demoted from the position of “manager” to the position of “worker.” Nevertheless, there was hopeful prospect of a housewife’s role. It was because housewives had roles as consumers. The new duty entrusted to the housewife was to shop. Housewives now know how to save and plan for consumption of planning. And they learned how to purchase goods reasonably and economically through consumer unions. This was the greatest authority given to a housewife. Housewives have become influential not only in the domestic economy but also in the real economy of Joseon through consumption and solidarity.