becoming a species of services performed, not so much for the
individual behoof of the head of the household as for the
reputability of the household taken as a corporate unit -- a
group of which the housewife is a member on a footing of
ostensible equality. As fast as the household for which they are
performed departs from its archaic basis of ownership-marriage,
these household duties of course tend to fall out of the category
of vicarious leisure in the original sense; except so far as they
are performed by hired servants. That is to say, since vicarious
leisure is possible only on a basis of status or of hired
service, the disappearance of the relation of status from human
intercourse at any point carries with it the disappearance of
vicarious leisure so far as regards that much of life. But it is
to be added, in qualification of this qualification, that so long
as the household subsists, even with a divided head, this class
of non-productive labour performed for the sake of the household
reputability must still be classed as vicarious leisure, although
in a slightly altered sense. It is now leisure performed for the
quasi-personal corporate household, instead of, as formerly, for
the proprietary head of the household.




Chapter Four

Conspicuous Consumption

In what has been said of the evolution of the vicarious leisure
class and its differentiation from the general body of the