The thing that many of these analyses overlooks is that fact that the 'trad wife' was very much a middle and upper class thing. The vast majority of women throughout the ages have had to do more than 'housework'. This could range from assisting with farm work, selling produce at market, spinning/weaving and other home based crafts to heavy factory work in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. And all the big houses relied on women workers 'below stairs', most of whom continued such work after marriage.