shown greater frenzy than men in their efforts to attain their desired goal. They had not yet learned the lesson of self control forced upon men by their economic struggles. Economic struggles have always brought men into other relationships with their fellow men than the purely social. Such has not been the lot of women.

Industrial changes have played a large part in determining the social, political and economic status of women. It is only since the advent of machine industry that women as a sex have been recognized as a distinct economic factor in our industrial life. Consequently it has been difficult to procure material illustrating the industrial status of women in certain periods of history.

When history mentions women, it is invariably as individuals in their social, religious or political capacities, and not as a class of industrial workers. The reason for this lack of data is that women as a class assumed a passive attitude in the economic and industrial life; and, excepting when forced by necessity, took no aggressive part in the great industrial changes of the time. Invariably they adapted themselves to existing conditions.

If little emphasis is placed in the following pages on the influence of the great moral forces which have played such a large part in the history of our civilization, it is not because these forces are overlooked but because they are not a part of the general theme dealing primarily with the economic.

WOMEN AND ECONOMIC EVOLUTION

CHAPTER I

THE STATUS OF WOMEN AND PRIMITIVE INDUSTRY Facts brought to light by ethnologists and anthropologists indicate that our prehistorie ancestors were engaged in a severe struggle for existence. This struggle must have been a keen one when man's life was filled with fear, when his advantages over other animals were slight, and where climatic conditions were unfavorable to the procuring of subsistence. Undoubtedly his greatest desire was for a sense of security from enemies.

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There is a tendency to attribute to primitive man a considerable degree of reasoning power; whereas he acted, no doubt, largely from impulse, and with little concern for the future. Marshall says, Whatever be their climate and whatever their ancestry, we find savages living under the domain of custom and impulse; scarcely ever striking out new lines for themselves; never forecasting the distant future, and seldom making provision even for the near future; fitful in spite of their servitude to custom, governed by the fancy of the moment; ready at times for the most arduous exertions, but incapable of keeping themselves long to steady work.''

The immediate satisfying of his wants was primitive man's main thought, and the eliminating of the factors interfering with the gratification of these wants, his chief concern.

He probably would have sacrificed freedom for a greater degree of security, for freedom was something beyond his imagination, and was a mockery to one engaged in so severe a struggle with his environment.

1 Marshall, Principles of Economics, I, pp. 10-11. Ed. 4.

Primitive woman had an advantage over man in that her sexual appetite was not so keen. "All females were alike for the male animal and savage. The only selection that took place down to the close of the protosocial stage was female selection. The females alone were sufficiently free from the violence of passion to compare, deliberate, and discriminate":

This might have given primitive woman the upper hand had she sought authority. But protection, both during the time of pregnancy when her physical powers were impaired, and during the period of lactation was her greatest concern. Maternity was her paramount interest and beyond the needs of her child there was no desire for power.

Naturally out of the relationship existing between protector and protected, arose a recognition of authority in the former. Hence it seems reasonable to believe that the subordination of women to men in early historical times grew out of conditions working no hardship on either sex but affording mutual advantages.

If stress of circumstances was in any way responsible for the superior intelligence of man over other animals, woman would necessarily be the first to develop the quality of foresight, for it fell to her lot to provide for her offspring. The fulfillment of this responsibility was essential to the preservation of the race.

His first

Primitive man and primitive woman could go through long periods of fasting, but not so their children. The mother's maternal instinct prompted her to supply their wants before her own, while man satisfied his hunger first, and then relegated the remains of his feast to the women and the children. instinct was the satisfying of his wants; hers, the satisfying of her offspring's. Here lies one of the fundamental differences between the sexes; and out of this contrast in self-thought have arisen the marked differences of character commonly designated as feminine and masculine.

If primitive man's first concern had been to feed his mate, woman would never have become the "mother of industry."

2 Ward, Pure Sociology, p. 360.

She might have remained passive in the struggle for subsistence, as she was in the struggle against enemies.

Prehistoric men left the remains of the feast to the women and the children; and when food was scarce the women were forced to seek some means of subsistence other than the hunt afforded. They "climbed up hills for the opossum, delved in the ground with their sticks for yams, native bread, and nutritious roots, groped about the rocks for shellfish, dived beneath the sea for oysters, and fished for the finny tribe."3

Woman was the "mother of industry" and the inventor of most of the early industrial arts. Says Mason, "Women were instructed by the spiders, the nest builders, the storers of food and the workers in clay like the mud wasp and the termites. It is not meant that these creatures set up schools to teach dull women how to work, but that their quick minds were on the alert for hints coming from these sources.. ....It is in the apotheosis of industrialism that woman has borne her part so persistently and well.'

Students of primitive history have given us vivid pictures of the industrial occupations of women among different tribes; but they depend largely for their material upon examples of these industrial occupations as carried on among tribes existing at present in a state of primitive culture. Nowhere now do we find an illustration of inventive genius on the part of women generally, in a primitive state of culture corresponding to that credited to them in prehistoric times. This may be due to a lack of personal freedom, such as was known to primitive woman, or to the lack of proper incentive stimulating the individual to progress. The latter reason may account for the unprogressiveness or degeneracy of many tribes of the present day.

Following his natural instincts and utilizing his power for their gratification prehistoric man found himself in possession of an authority over woman which he had unconsciously acquired. When once conscious of this power he used it arbitrarily, and perhaps oppressively.

Among peaceable peoples there was little need for the exercise

Quoted by Thomas, Sex and Society, p. 125.

* Mason, Woman's Share in Primitive Culture, pp. 2-3.

of authority, either defensively or offensively. That personal services were rendered men by the women does not necessarily signify the services were prompted by fear. It is only where militancy prevails that we find an exercise of authority by men over women which suggests the tyranny of the strong over the weak. But even here the tyranny of the strong members of the tribe over the weak is more noticeable than the tyranny of man over woman. Authority determined the status of the individual or of the sex, but it was only one of the factors determining occupation.

Contemporary tribes of low culture differ widely in the position and occupation of women, but there is sufficient resemblance of work among women generally, to make it safe to say that to the women fall the tasks most compatible with stationary habits of life." 5

As a matter of choice women would naturally engage in those occupations which centered around the fireside. We do find. many instances where owing to the employments of men, or to the habits of migration resulting from a search for food, the women are employed far from the hearth. On the whole, however, the occupations commonly pursued by women freed them from carrying children long distances. Westermarck says that the occupations of men are "such as require strength and ability; fighting, hunting, fishing, the construction of implements for the chase and war, and the building of huts.

On the other hand, the principal occupations of women are universally of a domestic kind: She procures wood and water, prepares the food, dresses skins, makes clothes, takes care of the children. She, moreover, supplies the household with vegetable food, gathers roots, berries, acorns, and among agricultural savages, very commonly cultivates the ground. Thus the various occupations of life are divided between the sexes according to definite rules. And though the formation of these rules has undoubtedly been more or less influenced by the egoism of the stronger sex, the essential principle from which they spring lies deeper."

5 Thomas, Sex and Society, p. 134.

"Westermarck, The Position of Women in Early Civilization, The American Journal of Sociology, Nov., 1904, p. 410.