Payment and obligation works differently in public and in private.  The economic sphere and the private (family) sphere have separate obligations and systems of contracts. The way in which the economic system works is that generally people are paid for their labor by those who benefit from it, either directly or indirectly. This is a mutual relationship of monetary-labor exchange. In the family sphere, the contracts are based on personal obligation and the family unit as opposed to individual contraction of services. The family unit is a pre-existing relationship not created on labor-pay agreements. Individuals opt into being a parent in a family unit on a voluntary basis and with no expectation or pretence of return for their services, except perhaps from their children in the future. Remuneration is created in the form of a functioning, rewarding family unit and family life and the products and services produced are of no quantifiable monetary value nor can they be sold or do they create wealth. Because housewives do not labor for anybody outside of their household, they should not be paid by anybody outside of their family. Moreover most of the work that housewives do would have to be done by a member of the family unit regardless of whether everyone was also engaged in monetized work – there would still need to be washing, cleaning, shopping etc done.  Housewives do not exist as workers in the economic sphere as they do not create a monetized product with their labor and opt into the agreement on voluntary non-monetary bases. As such, they are not entitled to pay.