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Chapter 7 turns to the justifications men provided for what they did, and did not do, in domestic space. Men’s image of themselves as complex, thinking, many-sided human beings—who had to roam free and fulfill their natural talents—depended, critically, on the assumption that the self-made man is beholden to no one outside himself, least of all to “minor dependents” in the domestic world. Chapter 7 revisits these beliefs, and the tensions and conflicts that flowed from them, through examples of men’s insistence on “educating” women, and women’s wonderment at men’s impatient behavior, across class and community. It concludes with a plea that scholars reexamine carefully what is classified as necessary (great World Historical events and processes), and what as contingent (survival and reproduction of the species, companionship and care, and the accompanying drudgery of everyday domestic life?).

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