The term "housewife" may sound rather outdated in the 21st century, but there was a time when the description applied to millions of women around the world, those whose main responsibility was running or managing the family home, caring for children, buying, cooking, and storing food, and doting on their husbands. Well, that should really be responsibilities plural, shouldn't it?
Click through the following gallery and take a look at how the role of the housewife has changed over the last few hundred years, particularly in the 20th and 21st centuries.