In the Doghouse

A popular theory credits J. M. Barrie's 1911 play Peter Pan, in which Mr. Darling, guilt-stricken after his children are taken by Peter Pan, banishes himself to live in the family dog's kennel as an act of remorse. It's a neat story, but the phrase "doghouse" doesn't actually appear anywhere in the text of Peter Pan, and "doghouse" itself is chiefly an American term. Barrie was Scottish, wrote and set the play in Britain, where dogs live in kennels, not doghouses, which makes the connection unlikely. The figurative sense of being "in the doghouse," banished for bad behaviour, is documented in American use by 1932, with no clear connection to Barrie's play at all.