The two-supporter model(s)

By the two-supporter model, we mean an arrangement where both spouses work and jointly bear responsibility for the household's livelihood. The work they do can be of different types: it can be paid or unpaid, its products can be consumed by the household or sold on a market and it can be more or less permanent/temporary. The shared responsibility is both a practice and a societal norm.

A classic version of the two-supporter model is the early modern peasant household. Ideally, both spouses work on the farm's land and forests and take care of animals and family members. Some of what is produced is consumed by the household but some is sold or exchanged for other goods.

The opposite of the two-supporter model is, at least in theory, the male-breadwinner model. It is characterized by the fact that only one of the spouses – almost always the husband – works and is solely responsible for the maintenance of the household. The wife is supported and contributes with reproductive work in the home. We write ‘in theory’ because GaW’s definition of work means that we also consider the wife’s reproductive tasks, i.e. childcare, cooking, cleaning, etcetera as work, which makes it difficult to imagine a breadwinner model.

The change from an essentially agrarian society to a more industrialized and modern society has been described in terms of a transition from a society dominated by a two-supporter model to a system dominated by the male-breadwinner model. We believe that such a description is both simplistic and (probably) inaccurate.

On the other hand, we think it is meaningful to talk about this change in terms of shifts in how the organization of production units is interwoven with that of households. In consequence, to be able to talk about historical change in this respect, we believe that more developed concepts are needed than the two-supporter model and the male-breadwinner model.

Against this background, we have tried to find concepts that describe different supporter models that we have found in sources from the 18th and 19th centuries. Chapter 9 in Gender, Work and the Transition to Modernity in Northwestern Europe, 1720—1880 (forthcoming, OUP 2024/2025) describes seven such models, five two-supporter models and two one-supporter models.

• ’a breadwinner croft-maker model’;
  
• ‘a dual patriarchal household model’;
  
• ‘a dual-wage model’;
  
• ’a joint enterprise model’;
  
• ’a double enterprise model’

• ‘sole provider model’
  
• ‘a single and live-in model’