Female Domestic Labour and the Presumption of Remuneration in Early Nineteenth-Century Scots Law

During the early nineteenth century, domestic labour was women’s labour. If a family could afford to, they employed a domestic servant to supplement the labour of female family members. Domestic servants were also usually women but were distinguished from wives and daughters by the fact they were employed under a contract of service, in which they exchanged their labour for wages. It was not always clear, however, whether a woman who lived and worked within a household was an unpaid family member or a waged, contractual worker. Judges in early nineteenth-century Scotland developed the presumption that a person who worked as a domestic servant ought to be paid for their service, unless there was an agreement that the work was gratuitous. This principle was endorsed in Anderson v Halley (1847), a decision of the Inner House of the Court of Session.