The running of a home, far from being just simple chores, has been and remains one of the bedrocks of a functional society. Without the work of a homekeeper, other family members would not be free to go to work and invest in a career for themselves. This would harm the family structure and the economy. The importance of this role means that the home labourer is entitled to some compensation. If the work had to be provided at market rates the cost would run to hundreds of billions of pounds or dollars a year.
Society should always try to reward its citizens for vital work in some degree at least. Under a capitalist system the value of goods and services is recognised in financial terms, so a wage would recognise the important contribution of homemakers. As well as being important, housework is physically taxing, time consuming and in balancing the needs of a household, a relatively specialised task. These features are all valued highly by the marketplace, and it is a pure accident of history that homekeepers have not been included in this.