Th e H i s to ry o f Wo m e n121the economic necessities that induced farm wives to work on the family farm threatened to undermine the self-esteem of the male breadwinner and, by extension in a patriarchal society, to damage the colony reputation. Consequently, in 1893, the South Australian government decided not to officially record the female contribution to the rural economy.10 As a result of the widespread practice of patrilineal inheritance, marriage has constituted the usual point of entry for women to farming. This has caused difficulties as economic theorists, farming organizations, and government bodiesorking within the framework of the dominant gender ideologyailed to recognize the value of unpaid work, whether in the domestic context or on the farm itself. In consequence, such women were customarily deemed in official records, such as census statistics, to be dependents of their husbands. In the colonial family, the demarcation of public and private space was an important determinant of gender identity. While it was the male prerogative to move freely beyond the confines of the house and garden, the household was designated as the woman domain. Women were expected to ensure that the home was both cheerful and morally uplifting, serving as refuge for the male provider; yet for most women it was a place of almost ceaseless toil and hardship.11 An entry for 1920 in the diary of Fanny Barbour, who lived on a farm at Berwick, near Melbourne, reflects the contrast between her pleasure at working in her garden and her dislike of boring and repetitive household chores: ince the middle of August . . . there has been nothing to enter except the rain, and wind-and every day alike-get up in the morning at seven-skim the milk etc. Get breakfast. Wash up-clean out fireplaces-do the rooms etc get dinner-pouring all dayso iron or wash-or do something in the house-most monotonous.�2 The deleterious impact of such work on women health was noted early by the medical profession. In an article entitled he Injurious Effects of Close Confinement and Overwork�that appeared in a health journal in 1885, a doctor noted:The poor man, as he is called, is much better off in this colony than the poor man wife. If she has a large family, as most poor women have, she has a hard time of it. Her day is a constant round of cooking, scrubbing, making, mending, with a child in arms or one in prospect, from the time she gets up to the time she goes to bed. . . . She probably does as much actual work, spends as much nervous and
