What is a ritual chore? By analyzing the nineteenth-century American theorist of domesticity Catharine Beecher, this article argues that there is a form of gendered ritual that is submissive and unproductive. Unlike scholars such as Saba Mahmood and R. Marie Griffith who have argued for acknowledging the practical cultivation of virtue in conservative religious women’s piety, Beecher provides a model of gendered ritual that produced a flurry of activity rather than a self. Ritual chores, Beecher teaches us, do not result in self-mastery. The nineteenth-century middle-class Christian woman tended to her home by initiating the work of her servants; thus, her theory of domesticity was also a theory of ritual surrogacy, or the enactment of ritual at the behest of another. I argue that the dissatisfaction of the white-collar middle-manager and the nineteenth century northeastern housewife have much in common: both roles make the worker feel like their labor might in fact be pointless.

中文翻译：

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仪式琐事：凯瑟琳·比彻的家庭生活

什么是仪式琐事？本文通过分析 19 世纪美国家庭生活理论家凯瑟琳·比彻（Catharine Beecher），认为有一种性别仪式形式是顺从的和非生产性的。与 Saba Mahmood 和 R. Marie Griffith 等学者主张在保守的宗教女性的虔诚中承认美德的实际培养不同，Beecher 提供了一种性别仪式模型，它产生了一系列活动而不是自我。Beecher 教导我们，仪式性的琐事不会导致自我控制。十九世纪中产阶级的基督徒妇女通过开始她的仆人的工作来照料她的家。因此，她的家庭生活理论也是一种仪式代孕理论，或者说是按照他人的要求制定的仪式。