The Student Room Group
Reply 1
I know the phrase was used by Virginia woolf in her essay 'professions for women' (in the death of the moth collection), and she got it from a poem - The Angel in the House. Woolf says about the angel in the house "she was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming, She was utterly unselfish. She excelled in the difficult arts of family life. She sacrificed herself daily. If there was chicken she took the leg; if there was a draught she sat in it - in short she was so constituted that she never had a mind or wish of her own, but preferred always to sympathise with the minds and wishes of others. Above all- she was pure. In those days - the last of queen victoria - every house had its angel".

So basically woolf uses the angel in the house as a symbol of the 'ideal' passive, selfless woman. She explains how her urge to write was restricted by this ideal and how, in order to succeed as a writer, she first had to kill the angel, so that she could make her own talents floursh not worry about an ideal that she was 'supposed' to be.

Hope that helps!