"House Servant" - Dumfriesshire

[iwccc]

I am researching my family and in the 1851 census (of family search) I have come across a man relative who is head of the house (church officer - previously a mason )  living with his married son (Blacksmith journeyman) and an unmarried lady servant (34 yrs) whose occupation is listed as "House Servant"
Question:  Does having a servant mean only that they are people of means?  I notice that many other relatives had 'lodgers" or was this another way of saying 'a lodger'?  As the lady is on the 1851 census I assume she was living with them.
What exactly does it mean - 'house servant' ? 
Any help would be much appreciated.  Thank you

[Skoosh]

I think somebody to do the washing, cooking & cleaning etc'. The family may not have been well off but these things needed doing and they were obviously well enough off.
  Huge numbers of women then were servants of one sort or another, and where he women of the house were unable for the work a servant was a necessity.
 In this case the servant lived in and would have been paid, a lodger on the other hand, did no work in the house and payed for their accommodation.

Skoosh

[Marmalady]

Having a servant did not mean you were rich -- even those in very modest circumstances could usually afford one servant. Only the very poorest did not have someone to help in the house. Even those who could not afford a live-in servant often had a "daily" - someone who just worked for them each day but lived elsewhere. And as in this case it is two males in the household - who would not have been brought up to know how to cook clean & do the laundry!

You can tell the standing of the household by the number of servants they had -- one servant to do all the necessary work is common. If they had several servants with defined positions (cook, housemaid, nursery maid etc) you can be fairly sure they were higher up the social scale