One of the merchants at Valua sells a key item named the Domesticator. This can be used in the Forest Cabin to turn an ally into a Housewife, removing her from the party and adding her to the cabin's staff (which appears to mean that they contribute to producing potions from the recipes you add to the workbench). Housewives also actually do eventually clean up the Cabin's first floor (the cracks in the walls will be mended and the broken cobwebbed furniture disposed). The Housewife status can be removed by simply speaking with her to re-add her to the party. Maybe part of the reason the Cabin's first floor was expanded, was to have room for multiple Housewives milling about?
Each character also provides one unique service as a Housewife, though with a cooldown period between uses-- and it's not reset if you un-Domesticate and re-Domesticate them.
Lilina: Party gains Satisfied status (max Lust increased to 150%) for the next battle
Sinian: Gives Orc Eggs to sell (is not ready right away)
Sable: Party gains EXP (gave me 12, which is a low-to-medium difficulty battle)
Jyla: Sets party's lust gauges to 10 points below maxed
Nuan: Gives money (gave me 413G)
Commoner: Party gains Empowered status (4-6 turns; remember that buff and debuff turn counters tick down while walking around)
Alisha: Gives three random status-inflicting items
Yterre: Gives an item? (gave me chocolate, maybe she gives Seaside Chalet gifts?)
Annie: Gives two spell bullets of a random type (gave me String Bullets, maybe this is for the Web spell?)
Samona: Gives a random puppet item (gave me a Sea Market Frame)
Wind: Wind gains 25 JP in her base class (pretty sure she has enough JP at her level cap to buy out all her skills, but this can let her do it earlier-- or simply become half an Elixir via the Draining Witch)
I should see what Wind's level-cap skill is, actually...
