State Feminism And Mealtimes

Before women were dragged into the world of waged work, families used to sit down together to eat meals. There was no snacking allowed between meals. The meals had a semi sacred nature. Depending upon which country you were in, thanks was given either before or after the meal.
Eating food was not simply a matter of appetite and digestion, but was one of the great ceremonies of life.
The most sacred rite of the Christian church is eating and drinking together.
It was the women who prepared the food. It was they who served the food they had prepared. Before women worked as repetitive drones for some manager somewhere, their place of work was the home, looking after their man and the children which, God willing, they raised together.
Consequently, reflecting the reality of civilised life, girls were educated accordingly, taught by their mothers to sew and mend, to heal and to grow vegetables, to cook and to look after children. This work was not a burden. It was what it meant to be a woman. It was the nature of woman to want such things. It was a man's duty to ensure that a woman had the wherewithal to fulfil her destiny as a woman. It was man who served woman.
Careers, so called equality, might make sense to rich women who had servants - other women - to cook for them, but for ordinary folk the division of labour, and its corresponding trust and mutual support between man and woman, was the essence of living.
We often wonder how old folk stay together for so many years while younger people get divorced. It was mutual service that glued them together. But in today's world of snacks and salaries, there is not really much point is sticking together.
At school the boys learnt the technical skills of the industrial age and the girls learnt domestic science.
Their future lives were to be happy lives, filled with children, grandchildren, a home, and the breaking of bread together as a family.
But the rich women with servant women must have their way, and young girls dreams must be shattered.
The hearth is where the woman reigns supreme, its food and its warmth the centre of human life.