A Theory about Dishes

On the unique unpleasantness and importance of washing the dishes

“Washing dishes” (1914) photograph by Harry Whittier Frees

In 2016, an article by Matthew Fray titled, “She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes by The Sink” went viral. It begins by addressing the ridiculousness of the title.

It seems so unreasonable when you put it that way: My wife left me because sometimes I leave dishes by the sink.

It makes her seem ridiculous; and makes me seem like a victim of unfair expectations.

The author then goes on to talk about why his wife cared about the dishes he left and how it reflected her broader concerns about not feeling respected and wanting her partner to share the mental load of managing a house. Toward the end, he summarizes the real problem his wife and other women in her situation have.

The wife doesn’t want to divorce her husband because he leaves used drinking glasses by the sink.

She wants to divorce him because she feels like he doesn’t respect or appreciate her, which suggests he doesn’t love her, and she can’t count on him to be her lifelong partner.

In the end, it was not about the dishes but about a broader pattern of behavior that left the wife feeling unsupported in their marriage. The dishes are a symbol, an artistic flourish to represent one piece of the frustration many couples, especially straight ones, have when it comes to dividing household labor. But what if this is not the whole story? What if dishes have a unique ability to create resentment and domestic misery?

There was a group of friends I knew who decided to all live together after high school. When their lease was up, they did not renew and there were some bitter feelings. At least one person claims that the reason their setup did not work out was because of conflict over the dishes. Maybe the dishes were a symptom of a bigger problem related to communication or willingness of everyone to share in household labor. But what if we take this reason seriously? What if that household did fall apart because of the dishes?

Conflict over dishes is so common that I am willing to bet every person reading this has argued about dishes at some point in their life whether that be with their parents, their own children, their partners or their roommates. There are always dishes to wash and most people find washing them to be unpleasant. Over time after hearing about other people’s conflicts and dealing with my own, I have come to think much more seriously about dishwashing than any sane person should. I have read empirical research on the division of dishwashing labor and its effects on relationships (most of which, oddly enough, focus on sexual satisfaction). I have read multiple takes by Christians who argue that dishwashing is part of God’s punishment for Eve eating the apple. Then I explored the many articles whose title is a play on “everyone wants a community/village/commune but no one wants to do the dishes.”

My radical conclusion after reading the dishwashing literature is that who does the dishes is not a petty concern and the fact that people see it as petty is the main reason it can prove to be such a destructive force in households whether those houses consists of married couples, roommates, or income sharing commune dwellers.

Evidence for the Surprising Importance of Dishwashing

Out of the few scientific studies on the division of dishwashing labor, the most relevant is Carlson, Miller and Sassler’s (2018) study that compared how the division of labor of different household tasks affects relationship satisfaction (including its effects on sex). Out of all the tasks they included (preparing/cooking meals, house cleaning, shopping, laundry, home maintenance, and paying bills), the “most consequential to relationship quality” was washing the dishes. When women were doing much more of the dishwashing, there was lower relationships satisfaction, more reports of relationship troubles, higher likelihood of having talked about separating, and a higher likelihood of physical arguments. Dishwashing was unique in its ability to cause discord and unhappiness.

Unfortunately, most research on division of household labor does not separate out dishwashing from other tasks so the rest of my evidence is anecdotal. After Mathew Fray wrote the above mentioned article about his wife leaving him over the dishes, he became a relationship coach and wrote a book about how men can save their marriages. His article about dishes resonated so much that he spun it into an entire career.

Even more better evidence came from reading Kat Kinkade’s Is It Uptoia Yet?, which is a memoir about her time living in the income sharing community, Twin Oaks for 25 years. As I’ve written about before, Twin Oaks is a long-standing intentional community based on a utopian novel by BF Skinner. One of the only practices that they continued from the book was the labor-credit system. Everyone in the community works a 40ish hour week but, unlike the outside world, domestic tasks count in these 40 hours so everyone ends up with more free time. In the early years, Twin Oaks attempted an incentive system to make unpleasant tasks worth more but they found that to be unnecessary. As Kat writes,

Skinner didn’t imagine (nor did I until experience showed me) that some people would rather dig a ditch than balance a checkbook. There is almost no type of work that does not attract someone. When we do run across jobs that nobody wants to do, manipulating the credit does not help.¹

For years, Twin Oaks ran their labor credit program with members able to do any task they preferred and this was enough to ensure that everything got done except for one specific task that people continually did not want to do. Considering the article you’re reading, you can safely guess what task that was.

Though a few people rather like washing dishes, and many people do not mind it, there are not enough such people to cover all the dishwashing that a community needs. For years we attempted to assign that task only to hose who minded it the least, but they tired of it.

The move to a mandatory kitchen shift did not take place without a struggle. Two members adamantly refused to go along with it. They claimed that they not only hated kitchen work, but they hated it more than other people did. (…)

After a good bit of indignant grumbling, the Community decided to put the new rotation into effect over the objections of the two holdouts. Everybody else would wash dishes. Those two men would not be assigned. Eventually one of them offered to clean bathrooms as a substitute, an offer very welcome in the Community, since we had almost as much trouble getting bathrooms cleaned as we did getting volunteers for dishwashing.²

They almost had as much trouble getting bathrooms cleaned as getting dishes washed. Twin Oaks had an easier time finding people willing to clean toilets and dig ditches than wash dishes on a daily basis. People hate doing the dishes.

So there’s my evidence that dishes are important in and of themselves. They are not always a metaphor or a symptom of a larger problem. For whatever reasons, dishes are unique in their ability to cause chaos, havoc and resentment. Some people like doing dishes more than others but basically no one seems to enjoy washing them as often as they need to be washed.

My Guesses as to Why Dishwashing is so Important

Compared to other household tasks, dishwashing is more constant and has less potential to be fulfilling. There are other tasks that are gross, such as cleaning the toilet or gutters, but those aren’t daily tasks. Other tasks that are daily, such as cooking, are ones that many people enjoy and even do as a hobby. No one washes dishes as a hobby. The closest task in terms of regularity and unpleasantness might be laundry. In households where one person does everyone’s laundry then it does become a daily task of often unnoticed drudgery. But in most households laundry is not a daily issue in the way dishes are.

My main theory is that the perception of dishwashing as a petty concern is the problem. Most of the comments under Mathew Fray’s article are in the vein of “in a healthy marriage people do not care so much about dishes.” The whole reason the article went viral is the ridiculousness of the idea that dishes could be so important. When an issue is considered petty then the onus is on the resentful person to let it go rather than force a solution that everyone is satisfied with but it’s hard to let go when the dishwasher is reminded of their resentment everyday, multiple times a day. Washing the dishes does not take long but those short bursts of annoyances adds up.

What about machines?

Dishwashing machines save time but do they help the conflict around dishes? From what I can tell, they do not and may even make the conflict worse. There are two problems with dishwashing machines. Their use has changed how households handle the dishes and their design makes it harder for individuals to collaborate when cleaning.

As happens with every appliance, the time-saving benefits are decreased by changing standards. For example, machines have led to less time doing laundry overall, especially compared to the days of handwashing, but it saves less time than originally assumed because now people own more clothes and wear each piece of clothing less often. Machines make washing dishes more efficient so it has now become the norm to own many more dishes and to use utensils that need washing after every use rather than ones that need less regular yet more intensive cleaning (such as cast iron). Plus machines make it harder to finish cleaning all the dishes if there are more dishes than the machine can handle, which makes it more likely dishes are going to be left in the sink—a common point of tension.

When it comes to conflict though the biggest issue is how machines make it harder to share the task of cleaning. With handwashing, it is easy to have multiple roles. As a teenager, I used to fill shifts at my grandmother’s catering company where most of the events were in a Victorian-era home that did not have an industrial dishwasher. We would break up dishwashing duties into four roles. One person would gather the dishes, one would scrub them, another would dry them, and the last would take them back out. At home, there is no need for four people to handle dishes but, when handwashing, it is possible to have one person wash and another dry. With machines, it is much harder to have multiple people helping at the same time. This point became clear to me after attending a long-running, neighborhood game night.

For thirty years, this community has hosted a monthly game night where a few dozen people show up. It begins with a potluck. The expectations are simple and strict. Everyone brings a side or dessert and each person brings their own dishware. After eating, everyone lines up to hand wash their individual dish.

When I attended one of their game nights, their system confused me. We were all washing our dishes one by one in a kitchen that had a dishwasher. Wouldn’t it be more efficient to use the machine or to rotate individuals to handle the dishes? Yet the more I thought about it the more I accept that this was the system that allowed such a large group to continue their game nights with minimal tension. Using the machine would require shifts as there was no way it could handle 30+ dishes. Trying to organize and coordinate shifts would be annoying and would undoubtedly result in someone doing more work than others.

The dish washing machine is more efficient by the standards of water usage and of time although the latter is only true if there is one person handling the dishwashing. When there are multiple people washing dishes then it is quicker for them hand wash together.

What is the Best Way to Handle Dishes?

First off, it’s important to take the division of dishwashing labor seriously. Do not dismiss it as a petty concern and recognize it as a site that can breed small yet daily resentment. Other than that it’s really going to depend on the situation. Some people do not mind washing dishes as much as other people do but it does seem that it very rare to find someone who will be happy to do all the dishes. If you are someone who truly hates washing dishes then, taking note from Is It Uptopia Yet?, offering to handle all the toilet cleaning or similarly gross task is an adequate substitute. What’s important is finding a system that feels fair to everyone, which will not always mean splitting the task fifty/fifty (or whatever the equivalent is in a larger household or community).

When it comes to machines, it may be worth it to still do some handwashing or use disposable ware especially when it comes to events. As someone who cares deeply about the environment and hates waste, I still think disposable ware makes sense in certain contexts including large gatherings and also when people are too overwhelmed to handle dishwashing (a problem that can become serious if left unchecked). Also, disposable can mean compostable so there can be a balance between environmental concerns and a need for less dishwashing. My garden has quite a few decomposing paper plates in it.

There is no one best way to handle the dishes but they do need to be handled.

1. Is It Utopia Yet? page 31

2. Is It Utopia Yet? page 32-33