Respectability

Definition

Respectability names the moral-social criterion by which households believe their homes are actually judged: not visual presentation, style or "good taste," but "keeping up standards of cleanliness and tidiness." In Madigan & Munro's finding, "the judgements that these respondents typically believe are made about their houses are not to do with visual presentation and style, but to do with respectability. Standards of cleanliness and the efficiency of domestic organisation carry heavy moral overtones. They are laden with judgements about social worth, as embodied in the division between the 'respectable' or decent poor and the 'feckless' or undeserving – though by no means confined to those who would consider themselves poor" (p. 225). Respectability is thus the domestic interior's class-specific judgment-economy: where the designer culture judges rooms by taste, the households studied understand their social standing to be at stake in standards of housekeeping — "issues which create anxiety not playfulness, particularly for women. Women typically take the responsibility for setting and maintaining standards of housekeeping and bear the brunt of unfavourable judgements" (p. 225). The concept stands to taste as a parallel (and rival) social currency: it too is a distinction-making judgment, but its currency is moral (clean, tidy, 'decent') rather than aesthetic, and its sanction is anxiety rather than vulgarity.

Key Thinkers

• Ruth Madigan & Moira Munro — the concept's empirical source (1996/2006): respectability against "good taste" and Bourdieu's "sense of distinction" as the operative judgment in working- and lower middle-class households; the moral division between the 'respectable' and 'feckless' poor; the gendered carry of the standard.
• Pierre Bourdieu — the distinction frame the finding both extends and strains: respectability functions as a classificatory judgment ("laden with judgements about social worth"), yet its moral (not aesthetic) currency and its anxiety (not playfulness) may exceed the taste/distance model (see symbolic-capital, habitus).

Related Concepts

• taste — the rival judgment: where taste classifies by style and distinction, respectability classifies by moral housekeeping; the two can conflict ("overt striking for 'good taste'" is not what these households believe they are judged by, p. 224).
• domestic-interior — the site of the judgment: the home as the household's public moral evidence, its cleanliness read as social worth.
• gender-and-the-interior — the judgment's carrier: women "typically take the responsibility for setting and maintaining standards of housekeeping and bear the brunt of unfavourable judgements" (p. 225).
• comfort — the reconciliation that binds them: "it is impossible to be relaxed or comfortable in a house that does not meet the high standard of cleanliness and tidiness desired" (p. 225) — comfort made the product of the moral standard's constant effort.
• homeliness — the other half of the household's self-presentation: the welcoming, relaxed interior against the respectable one — the two goals whose conflict structures the home's negotiation.
• consumerism — the moral-overtones register of consumption: things "not worn or used" as the respectable house's demand; advertising "play[ing] on insecurities about being a good housewife/mother" (p. 225).
• interior-as-biography — the room as involuntary evidence of character, here at its most moralized: the house as the household's decent-poor/feckless verdict.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• 'House Beautiful': Style and Consumption in the Home (Madigan & Munro 1996/2006) — the concept's founding source: respectability against "good taste" and the "sense of distinction" (pp. 224–225); "Standards of cleanliness and the efficiency of domestic organisation carry heavy moral overtones. They are laden with judgements about social worth, as embodied in the division between the 'respectable' or decent poor and the 'feckless' or undeserving" (p. 225); the reconciliation strategy that makes comfort conditional on the moral standard ("it is impossible to be relaxed or comfortable in a house that does not meet the high standard of cleanliness and tidiness desired… a burden of constant effort," p. 225); the gendered carry ("Women typically take the responsibility for setting and maintaining standards of housekeeping and bear the brunt of unfavourable judgements," p. 225).

• Decorating Culture (Tang 1998/2006) — respectability's inverted counterpart, and the contrast that locates both: where Madigan & Munro's modest-income households answer consumption's judgment with moral standards (cleanliness, decency) rather than display, Tang's Heping reads "the sign of his own success" in a four-star-hotel apartment (p. 330) — the sign-consciousness consumer whose interior is designed "for recognition" (p. 333). The pairing marks conspicuous display and respectability as different answers to the same judgment pressure: what the home must show (see sign-value, conspicuous-consumption, use-value).

• Domestic Doyennes: Purveyors of Atmospheres Spoken and Visual (Turpin 2003/2006) — respectability's Victorian ancestor in the display economy, and the judgment's sharpest sanction: "a wife was legally bound to uphold the husband's social status. This was accomplished in two ways. The first was the presentation of the home. The second required the acquisition of new manners. Similar to the French madams, failure in crafting a successful public image meant ostracism, ridicule and exclusion from sources of power and wealth; in other words, a swift social and political death for the husband" (p. 371) — the home's presentation as the household's social standing made the wife's legal duty, the sanction social death. And the judgment's internalization as guilt: "Due to the strong sense of guilt for such excessive expenditures, Victorian women justified the extreme opulence and extravagance by invoking the idea of social duty… The women often applied self-imposed restrictions in order to soothe guilt. Ironically, such 'sins' were acceptable for women, but not for the men" (p. 371) — the moral overtones carried inside the display itself, the woman policing her own extravagance with duty. Where Madigan & Munro's respondents keep the home respectable against style, Turpin's Victorian ladies keep it respectable through display — the standard's moral apparatus (duty, guilt, self-restriction) operating within the opulence rather than against it. See gender-and-the-interior, conspicuous-consumption, taste.

Open Questions

• Is respectability a class-restricted judgment or the moral underside of taste everywhere? Madigan & Munro note it operates "by no means confined to those who would consider themselves poor" (p. 225) — is the designer culture's 'good taste' simply respectability in aesthetic dress, or are they genuinely separate economies of judgment?
• The reconciliation strategy makes comfort depend on the cleanliness standard ("it is impossible to be relaxed or comfortable in a house that does not meet the high standard," p. 225): is the home's comfort then always the product of discipline — and does this reconcile the concept with de Wolfe's tranquillity-claims or expose them? See comfort, gender-and-the-interior.
• Can respectability be designed — or is it, unlike taste, precisely what design cannot deliver (the cleanest, tidiest house being an achievement of housework, not of furnishings)? What would a design history of tidiness (storage, the fitted kitchen, the easy-clean surface) look like? See kitchen, streamlining.
• The 'respectable'/'feckless' division is a moral sorting of the poor — "by no means confined to those who would consider themselves poor" (p. 225). Does respectability police class from within (the decent poor against the undeserving) more efficiently than taste polices it from above? See symbolic-capital.