Maid

For other uses, see Maid (disambiguation).

Smedley maid illustration 1906

A maidservant or in current usage housemaid or maid is a female employed in domestic service.

Description

Once part of an elaborate hierarchy in great houses, today a single maid may be the only domestic worker that upper and even middle-income households can afford, as was historically the case for many households. In the contemporary Western world, comparatively few households can afford live-in domestic help, usually compromising on periodic cleaners. In less developed nations, very large differences in the income of urban and rural households and between different socio-economic classes, fewer educated women and limited opportunities for working women ensures a labour source for domestic work.

Historically many maids suffered from Prepatellar bursitis, an inflammation of the Prepatellar bursa caused by long periods spent on the knees for purposes of scrubbing and fire-lighting, leading to the condition attracting the colloquial name of "Housemaid's Knee".

Maids perform typical domestic chores such as cooking, ironing, washing, cleaning the house, grocery shopping, walking the family dog, and taking care of children. In many places in some poor countries, maids often take on the role of a nurse in taking care of the elderly and people with disabilities. Many maids are required by their employers to wear a uniform.

Legislation in many countries makes certain living conditions, working hours, or minimum wages a requirement of domestic service. Nonetheless, the work of a maid has always been hard, involving a full day, and extensive duties.

Types of maid

Maids traditionally have a fixed position in the hierarchy of the large households, and although there is overlap between definitions (dependent on the size of the household) the positions themselves would typically be rigidly adhered to. The usual classifications of maid in a large household are:

• Lady's Maid — a senior servant who reported directly to the lady of the house, but still ranked beneath the Housekeeper, and accompanied her lady on travel.
• House Maid — a generic term for maids whose function was chiefly 'above stairs', and were therefore usually a little older, and better paid; where a household included multiple House Maids they were often sub-divided as below.
  • Head House Maid — the senior house maid, reporting directly to the Housekeeper. (Also called House Parlour Maid in an establishment with only one or two upstairs maids).
  • Parlour Maid — the parlour maids cleaned and tidied reception rooms and living areas by morning, and often served refreshments at afternoon tea, and sometimes also dinner. They tidied studies and libraries, and (with footmen) answered bells calling for service.
  • Chamber Maid — the chamber maids cleaned and maintained the bedrooms, ensured fires were lit in fire places, and supplied hot water.
  • Laundry Maid — the laundry maids maintained the bedding and towels, and also washed, dried, and ironed clothes for the whole household, including the servants.
  • Under House Parlour Maid — the general deputy to the House Parlour Maid in a small establishment which had only two upstairs maids.
• Nursery Maid — also an 'upstairs maid', but one who worked in the childrens' nursery, maintaining fires, cleanliness, and good order, and reporting to the Nanny rather than the Housekeeper.
• Kitchen Maid — a 'below stairs' maid who reported to the Cook, and assisted in the running of the kitchens.
  • Head Kitchen Maid — where multiple kitchen maids were employed, the Head Kitchen Maid was effectively a deputy to the Cook, engaged largely in the plainer and simpler cooking.
  • Under Kitchen Maid — where mulitple kitchen maids were employed these were the staff who prepared vegetables, peeled potatoes, and assisted in presentation of finished cooking for serving.
• Scullery Maid — the lowest grade of 'below stairs' maid, reporting to the Cook, the Scullery Maids were responsible for washing up cutlery, crockery, and glassware, and scrubbing kitchen floors, as well as monitoring ovens whilst Kitchen Maids ate their own supper.
• Between Maid — roughly equivalent in status to scullery maids, and often paid less, the Between Maids in a large household waited on the senior servants (Butler, Housekeeper, Cook) and were therefore answerable to all three department heads, often leading to friction in their employment.

In more modest households a single Maid-of-all-work or skivvy was often the only staff.

The word "skivvy" appears to be of Japanese origin.In The American Language, H L Mencken lists some 65 derogatory terms used in America for different hationalities and ethnic groups. The only insulting term for the Japanese the list contains is ‘skibby’. Mencken explains in a footnote: ‘This is only used on the Pacific Coast. It originally meant a Japanese loose woman, but is now applied to all persons of the race.’ (The American Language, 4th edition, NY 1936, 12th printing 1949, pp 295-96) In The American Language: Supplement I, first published in 1945, Mencken gives a fuller account of the word. ‘Skibby,which is used to designate Japanese on the Pacific Coast, is extremely offensive to them, for it was originally applied to a loose woman, though it now means, at least in California, any Japanese, male or female. It seems to have been borrowed from a Japanese word, though what that word was is uncertain. In the British Navy, “skivvy” is an interjection of greeting, and is commonly believed to have come from the Japanese: perhaps it was encountered as a salutation of Japanese prostitutes.’ The Japanese word in question would have been ‘sukebee’, meaning 'lecher', 'a dirty-minded man'. Mencken goes on: ‘Since 1905 or thereabout, according to Partridge, it has been used in English slang to denote an English maidservant of the rougher sort.’ (The American Language: Supplement I, NY 1945, 6th printing 1956, pp 607-608) ‘Partridge’ is Eric Partridge, the British author of the Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (DSUE), first published in 1937. The DSUE lists two separate words: ‘skivvy’ meaning a rough maid-of-all-work, which Partridge derives from ‘slavey’, and ‘skivvy!’ (with an exclamation mark) , which he dates from 1909 and describes as ‘a naval asseveration or exclamation. Ex Japanese.’ It seems evident from the exclamation mark and the description that Partridge thought this was by way of being an oath or imprecation (possibly humorous) rather than ‘an interjection of greeting’, as Mencken called it. What presumably happened is clear. British and American sailors in Japan in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries would frequently have found themselves rebuked by Japanese women (whether seriously or playfully) with the word sukebee! - ‘lecher!’. They would then have turned it back on the women themselves, and in the British navy, evidently, used it (in the form ‘skivvy’) as a humorous insult for one another. Then they would have taken the word home. In the USA it lost its sexist component. From being a derogatory term for a Japanese woman of loose morals it became a derogatory term for any Japanese. In Britain, it lost its racial element. From being an opprobrious term, implying loose morals,for a Japanese woman,it became an insulting term for any immoral or slatternly woman, and ended by being applied to the lowest (that is the idlest, most slovenly) class of female domestic. And the US term 'skivvies', meaning ‘[men's]underclothing’, probably has the same derivation. The Dictionary of American Slang, compiled by Harold Wentworth and Stuart Berg Flexner has two relevant entries. First: ‘Skivvies. Underwear, either undershirts or underdrawers . . . Some use since c 1945’. And second: ‘Skivvy. 1. A man’s cotton undershirt . . . Has replaced “undershirt” in the U S N[avy] ; fairly common civilian use, esp. since W.W.II . . . 2. A pair of men’s cotton underdrawers . . .’ The likelihood is that ‘skivvy’ was borrowed from Japanese and that it was used by British sailors as a jocular insult towards one another. The sight of an American sailor in his underwear (soldiers and sailors must see each other in their underclothes more frequently than most groups of men) might well have prompted his shipmates to call out the word they had heard Japanese women use to chide lascivious behaviour.

In popular culture

One of the most in-depth and enduring representations of the lives of several types of maid was seen in the 1970s television drama Upstairs, Downstairs, set in England between 1903 and 1930. Another representation of the lives of maids is seen nowadays in Downton Abbey, set in England between 1912 and 1920.

See also

• Domestic worker
• Footman
• Nanny
• Au pair
• French maid
• Foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong
• Maid service
• Cleaner
• Janitor