I think it was Cynthia Enloe who wrote this, that domestic workers are paid to help save cishet marriages. Bc cishet men will refuse to clean up and cishet women will sacrifice everything to stay married. So instead of having uncomfortable conversations, they outsource labour.

The domestic worker is there to do what the couple would argue about. There is acknowledgement that the man will refuse to budge. But the woman will choose to prioritise his companionship instead of simply leaving. So she finds someone else to do the labour.

If there were no domestic workers, a lot more marriages would fail. People stay together because someone else is there to mediate between these things.

I personally believe that families who cannot afford domestic workers have children to do this. Because they know the children will grow up and be able to do tasks and they will then project this problem between the two of them onto the kids.

This is then an area where domestic violence is then transferred to someone else. The wife is aware the husband wants a clean house but refuses to make it clean himself. If he finds it dirty, he may become abusive. The wife wants to avoid this.

So, when the DW or the children for some reason slip up and do not wipe that one little dot of water on the kitchen counter, she imposes on them. Each time they forget that drop of water, the husband complains, perhaps threatens her. She then does this to the DW or kids.

The house is clean, orderly and perfect for absolutely no one but this man. Absolutely no one else. And it is all bc someone prioritised the marriage instead of a good connection.

In situations where a woman cannot afford to leave, we can understand why this is happening, but with middle and upper class women, this is just being complicit and prioritising nothing but so called "love" as well as class positioning.

This is also why women perceive their domestic workers, ironically, to be a threat to their marriage. They recognise that one of the motivations their husband has for being with them is to have a person who makes HIS life comfortable, not necessarily companionship.