There’s a general consensus, amongst bourgeois women that I know, that paying for a housecleaner is a relationship saver. Let me add a caveat there: amongst bourgeois women who also work full-time. Without a housecleaner, house cleaning usually goes something like this: both people are working full time, so no one’s doing it during the week. At some point, usually about once a month, someone (almost always the woman) gets fed up with it and decides they should clean. Someone (usually the man) is resentful that he/both of you are spending their ever-dwindling leisure time cleaning. So they come up with a plan: one partner will do the kitchen once a week, the other will do the bathroom once a week. Great. But someone doesn’t really do it without being reminded, which means that the other someone is constantly reminding them and feeling like a giant nag. Cue: the housecleaner conversation.