It is an ancient custom for a woman to run the house: cleaning, cooking, washing up, looking after the children, washing and mending the linen, making preserves. As a matter of fact, the ideas of the wife's duties have been adjusted in the long run but haven't essentially changed.

Home. In Russia the responsibility for maintaining order in a home (daily and overall cleaning) usually lies upon the woman. Russian women are very clean by nature, therefore their home, either a town apartment or a country cottage, is practically always shining. There are several ways to achieve the goal.

Of course, in Russia there are high income families and low income families, and the way of carriing out the housekeeping duties differs. In high income families the work is done by a daily help or people from special agencies hired by the hostess on purpose. But certainly the hostess is to control their work. Unfortunately, most Russian families cannot afford a hired cleaner, so the task is carried out by the feminine part of the family: grandmother, mother and grown-up children. In united, loving families men can also participate actively in maintaining order. Modern city-dwellers very often do not distinguish between wife's and husband's house duties: they prefer to carry them out together, or a spouse having spare time and a desire to do it at the moment, does the work. So, men try to help with vacuum cleaning, washing up. In the country they stick to the traditional division of labor. The living conditions can easily account for the fact. In the country men retain the duties connected with hard physical work in running the family farm and garden. That's why women carry out all housekeeping duties.

The second concern of russian women is clean linen and clothes. Neatly dressed children and husband wearing a clean well ironed shirt add to her reputation of a good wife.

Kitchen. It has always been the working place of the russian woman in the house. Very often deprived of electric kitchen appliances aid, the russian woman is engaged in a non-stop cycle of cutting, boiling and frying something. One of the characteristic features of the Russian cuisine is a great number of ingredients, and it's very time and effort consuming. Russian women treat with distrust the semi-finished products and prefer to do everything with their own hands. In summer and autumn the usual continuing cycle of cooking breakfast, dinner and supper is accompanied by making preserves for winter: juices, jams, pickles, salads.

Children. Theoretically, a three-year long leave to look after a new-born can be granted on either a father or a mother, but in reality fathers exercise this right only in exceptional cases. That means that looking after the children is exclusively mother's duty.