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Employing people you look down on may be a cheap way to feel better about yourself. But letting them look after your home and children requires uncomfortable mental contortions. These are skewered in “The Help”, a novel set in 1960s Mississippi which has recently been turned into a film. The villain tries to force white households to provide black maids with separate bathrooms because, conveniently for those they cook and clean for, “99% of all colored diseases are carried in the urine.”
In “The Theory of the Leisure Class”, Thorstein Veblen looked at many seemingly puzzling features of the master-servant relationship: the effort of managing them the elaborate uniforms they were required to wear inside private homes the sadly frequent abuse. He pointed out that, even in 1899, labour-saving devices would considerably reduce the need for household labour, which suggested to him that people hired servants not to relieve themselves of tedious tasks, but to be provided with “conspicuous subservience”. A servant both satisfied the master’s “propensity for dominance” and presented a public “performance of leisure”. The liveried footman, who demonstrated by his decorative uselessness his master’s ability to consume a great deal of unproductive labour, was the ultimate status symbol.
Prosperous and busy people employ nannies and cleaners to make life easy for themselves. But sometimes the point of having a servant is simply to be a master.

A. 어휘
look down on 내려다 보다, 경멸하다. look after 돌보다.
contortions 비틀기, 歪曲(왜곡). skewer 꼬챙이에 꿰다, 꼬챙이.
villain 악당. separate 분리된, 각각의. conveniently 편리하게.
urine 오줌. Leisure Class 有閑階級(유한계급).
seemingly 외견상으로. puzzling 困惑(곤혹)하게 하는, 당황시키는.
features 특징. elaborate 精巧(정교)한, 정성들인. frequent 頻繁(빈번)한.
abuse 학대, 濫用(남용). devices 장치. considerably 상당히.
reduce 감소시키다. relieve themselves of 없애주다.
tedious 지루한, 따분한. conspicuous 눈에 잘 보이는.
subservience 복종, 아첨. propensity 경향, 性癖(성벽).
dominance 지배, 권세. present 제공하다. liveried footman 제복 입은 하인.
livery 하인이나 고용원들이 입는 제복. decorative 장식적인.
ultimate 근원적인, 궁극적인. Prosperous 부유한, 성공한, 번영하는.
nannies 유모.