In pre-modern times, says Haruko (Josai International U.) the household was a social organism equivalent to a company today, values in it were not measured only in terms of financial exchange, and there was no split between consumption labor and productive labor. She describes how upper-class women servants performed domestic labor as social labor at court and other aristocratic houses, and among the common people, socially productive work was performed by wives and children. Nihon Chusei Joseishi no Kenkya: Seibetsu Yakuwari Buntan to Bosei