Are you Oikourous, Keepers at home, homemaker, workers at home?
Do you manage your household duties well?
Do you take good care of your household?
Well if you are then you are certainly justifying this word which has been only used Once in The Holy Bible. You are a Godly woman.
Oikourous, is a Greek word which means keepers at home. The Bible says that women should be keepers at home. In older times good Christian women were advised by the church to stay at home , look after the children and house and obey their husbands. Though there are examples where women were engaged in various occupational and economic activities yet mostly it was interpreted that the role of the woman is confined to household duties. Later it was adapted to suit working ladies as keepers OF home not AT home. Meaning they could work outside given that they do not neglect their duties at home. I am surprised that even today Amazon has as best sellers books which prescribe a curriculum for Godly women to teach their daughters the tips and tricks of being good wives and mothers.
The word may be Greek and used in the Bible but almost every culture has a similar theory. All cultures suggest and perpetrate the theory that women are nurturers and keepers and their foremost duty is to keep the home and hearth healthy.
In India and many South Asian cultures as well as the Arab world women are still relegated to housework; unpaid, unending and thankless. Rural women also take on farming, looking after the animals and looking for firewood. Only a minuscule section of very highly earning women living in ultra modern cities can yet afford to put up their feet as soon as they are home and order food. The condition of lower class women is still worse. They work as maids and servants n homes and shops, then go back home and fulfill their housekeeping duties and then wait for their drunkard husbands to come home and beat them and take away all their earnings.
It has been observed that women in India make only 27% of the working force. Those who work mostly take on both; paid jobs and unpaid housekeeping. Don’t be taken in with the numbers though. Chinese women make 64% of the work force yet they also take on double duties.
So be it any culture women are burdened with houseeeping duties regardless of class or income group. The house and the children are their prime responsibility, the husband if helps does so grudgingly or will only handle the financial and shopping for the groceries part. Thechildren don’t help either.
The family members need to help each other run the house. Times have changed. We are no longer hunter gatherers or early farmers. Women are just not nurturers, they are as human as all the men. Women can work in all areas and do wonders. They can be equal earning members and add to the economical productivity of the country and the world. To achieve this they have to be relieved of this burden. The responsibility also should be shared.
The husband needs to help even if the wife is not working because this work is monotonous and back breaking as well as emotionally stressful. They need to take care of their wives physical and emotional health.
May be the men should be Oikourous too the keepers of/at home. The word is not gender specific after all. Equality may well begin at home too.
