In a message dated 2/26/01 4:52:33 PM Pacific Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<< I agree... isn't there a hypothesis that whole sets of dishes, etc. found
 their way down privies when the female head of household changed? (i.e.
 from first wife to second, or from mother to bride)? Is this in Diane
 diZerega Wall's "The Archaeology of Gender", or am I thinking of another
 source? >>

Megan,

Now that one escaped me, but I also heard that masses of shirt buttons meant
the men never salvaged buttons because they did not make new shirts. Hence,
the hypothesis that masses of buttons in privies and dumps means male gender
occupation. This concept has been kicking around for at least 20 years, but I
do not know a source to cite or data to support it. On the other had, I did
inherit my grandma's button jar and think there is merit to the idea.

Wow, talk about spite!  But, my folks probably would never had dumped sets of
tableware because until the 1920s they could not afford them. A woman would
have really had to be making a statement for that kind of behavior. Then
again, people of the upper gentry would have had the money for that kind of
fashion turnover. Maybe class distinctions are the key to the tableware
changes?

Ron May