Definition
A household is a family or group of persons dwelling together under the same roof and functioning as a single domestic unit. The term carries two distinct legal senses:
1. Domestic unit. The persons who share a common dwelling and constitute a family for legal purposes. Presence under one roof is the traditional marker, but courts have recognized that a household may persist even when members are temporarily absent — a man's family living together constitutes his household even if he has traveled to another state. The unit need not be blood-related in every member, and servants or dependents living within the dwelling may be included.
2. Royal household officer (historical English law). A principal officer of the English royal establishment, ranking next under the controller, responsible for oversight and payment of wages to other officers of the household. This sense appears in older English legal sources and has no operative meaning in American law.
The domestic-unit meaning governs virtually all modern American legal contexts, including tax law, housing regulations, public benefits eligibility, domestic violence statutes, and probate.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Collectively, all the persons who live in a given house; a family including attendants, servants etc.; a domestic or family establishment."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Those who dwell under the same roof and compose a family."
The common and legal meanings are unusually close here, which itself creates a research trap. Because the ordinary meaning feels self-evident, researchers and drafters sometimes import it unreflectively into statutory contexts where legislatures have given the term a narrower or broader technical definition. Tax law, housing codes, and benefits statutes each define household on their own terms — the everyday understanding will not control.
Common Confusion
Household vs. family. The terms are related but not interchangeable. Family emphasizes biological or legal relationship; household emphasizes physical co-residence and shared domestic life. A household may include non-family members (lodgers, domestic employees), and a family may be legally recognized even when members do not share a household. Statutes and instruments should be read carefully: some use the terms interchangeably, others deliberately distinguish them.
Household vs. domicile/residence. Household describes a group of persons; domicile and residence describe a place. A person's household may follow them if the family unit moves, but these are analytically separate concepts.
Why It Matters in Research
Statutory definition controls. This is the central research intelligence for household. The term appears across dozens of statutory schemes — tax, housing, immigration, public benefits, domestic violence, consumer protection, census — and each scheme may define it differently. The common-law baseline (co-residence plus family composition) is the default, but it is frequently displaced. A researcher must identify which statutory or regulatory definition governs the specific context before applying any source.
Tax law and head-of-household status. The Internal Revenue Code uses household in a highly technical way for filing-status purposes. "Head of household" requires maintaining a home that is the principal place of abode for a qualifying person for more than half the year — a standard that diverges materially from the common-law conception. See the Encyclopedia cross-reference for filing status analysis.
Housing and benefits contexts. Fair Housing Act analysis, Section 8 eligibility, Medicaid household composition rules, and SNAP household definitions each apply their own criteria. Historical sources are largely useless here because this regulatory architecture is post-New Deal; do not rely on Bouvier or Burrill for any modern benefits question.
Probate and wills. The historical sources flag an important drafting issue: "household furniture" in a will has been construed broadly to include all personal chattels contributing to the use or comfort of the home. This is a recurring interpretive dispute in estate administration. Courts look to the testator's evident intent and the context of the entire instrument, not merely dictionary definitions.
Domestic violence statutes. Many jurisdictions extend protective order eligibility to household members regardless of family relationship, making the household concept central to standing analysis. These statutes typically have their own definitions that may include former co-residents.
The temporary-absence doctrine. The historical sources — and the cases they cite — establish that a household is not destroyed by a member's temporary absence. This principle survives into modern law and appears in homestead exemption disputes, insurance coverage questions, and domestic relations contexts. The New York authority cited in Burrill and Bouvier (18 Johns. 400, 402) reflects an early statement of this doctrine.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical sources present unusual agreement on the core definition. Black's (both editions), Burrill, and Bouvier all derive from the same formulation: persons dwelling under the same roof who compose a family, drawing on Webster's dictionary as persuasive authority — an interesting instance of the legal dictionaries themselves deferring to the general dictionary for a term whose meaning was considered primarily social rather than technical.
Bouvier adds a useful qualification absent from Black's and Burrill: co-residence under a single roof is not strictly required. If a mother and children keep together so as to constitute a family, the household exists even without a physical roof over the whole group. This formulation anticipates modern judicial flexibility on the question.
All historical sources include the royal household officer definition as a separate entry. Black's 1st edition awkwardly presents this in proximity to the domestic definition, which can confuse a reader scanning quickly. The officer definition is purely antiquarian in American practice.
What the historical sources miss entirely: the modern regulatory and statutory fragmentation of the term. Neither Burrill nor Bouvier could anticipate the tax code, federal housing programs, or means-tested benefit eligibility — contexts where household is now defined with precision that overrides common law entirely.
Jurisdictional Note
State law varies significantly in how household is defined for homestead exemption, insurance, and domestic relations purposes. Some states extend household to include non-related co-residents; others restrict it to persons connected by blood, marriage, or adoption. Federal regulatory programs each carry independent definitions. No single common-law definition travels safely across all jurisdictions and statutory schemes.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Family Law Encyclopedia — Tax Implications: Filing Status (Married, Single, Head of Household)