CONCLUSION
Our conception of humanity in early race history is associated with a struggle for subsistence. The animal instincts in men predominated and determined their destinies. When these deviated from a safe course, there was extinction. Danger was not encountered for the love of combat—if so man differed from other species—but to ward off a greater danger or to satisfy a hunger which was greater than the fear of forces. Such was the hunger for food and sex. Impulse and fear were the two guiding forces of primitive man, not self-control and reason. The sexual impulse of men was easily aroused while with women it was most often dormant. Thus the latter escaped one form of combat that played a conspicuous part in the race history. They lacked the impulse, and therefore the fear, that helped to make men fighters. The better fighters men were, the less need was there for women to take part in the combat. It was sex instinct which promptedmen to fight for their mates, and it was the same instinct that incited them to protect them after possession had been obtained. Thus by virtue of sex woman gained protection from a hostile outside world, not only for herself but for her offspring.
With possession always goes authority. It meant a great deal to the race for women to be protected during pregnancy and the period of lactation, but in this early protection of the female lay the roots of their later subordinate status. They were free in a measure from the tyranny of the hostile environmental force, but instead subjected to the tyranny of their masters. The latter was the lesser of two evils.
Primitive man was not necessarily brutal to his mate; there exists in all animals a natural deference on the part of the male toward the female—when he showed consideration for his fellow men. It was only when cruelty was a characteristic of man toward all his fellow men, or a distinctive quality of the members of the group in question, men and women alike, that women suffered from brutality.
When prehistoric man showed a tendency to establish a permanent dwelling place, two factors determined the occupation of women. Their offspring looked to them for food which the chase did not always supply; and secondly, they possessed, thanks to the men, leisure and sense of security which made possible the concentration of attention on the industrial arts. Necessity stimulated them to effort, but the security from enemies, at least in a measure, made possible peaceable pursuits that were significant of the beginning of the home.
Women were not averse to this arrangement of occupations, for to them it was the most convenient. To take part in war and the chase would have worked great hardships on the small children who needed much of the mother’s care. The association of women with the hearth is the outgrowth of a natural development having its basis in the convenience of both sexes.
Thus were established habits which in a later day became recognized as sex distinctions. The primitive mother handed down to her daughters the precepts she herself had followed—perhaps on her own initiative, and what was a habit with her became custom and tradition to her children.
In early historical times women occupied a sphere industrially, legally, and socially distinct from that of man, differing with different peoples, but sufficiently alike to establish the fact that woman’s position is invariably inferior. In militant types of society the contrast between the status of men and women is most marked, whereas these differences grow less as the occupations of both men and women incline toward industrialism. Strength or weakness in combat determined the status of the individual, class or sex when combat was the chief occupation of men.
Although in general women were physically weaker, and out of their weakness arose, possibly, sex tyranny, family ties were close, and by virtue of relationship individual women often exercised authority. This shows sex alone was not always sufficient to deprive women of all power.
In the early Roman days, their position was recognized by the state as distinct from any rank applicable to men. Men were graded from the highest position of respect in the state, to the lowest conceivable; from absolute authority to abject slavery. Women were destitute of authority as a sex, but individually the state recognized their rights as involved in the rights of the family. They received the rank of their husbands, but in a lesser degree, when they had no claim to the rank by virtue of any inherent power or ability of their own. While as a sex they had no voice in the state, the law-makers feared them when they were closely related to superior officers.
When war declined and agriculture assumed greater importance, the family became a close social and economic unit with recognition of a division of work between the sexes. Women, while still working in the fields tended to leave the out-door work to men, and to confine themselves more exclusively to in-door work. This might have been considered a concession to the sex, for only among the poorest people did women continue to hold their own in the field. Undoubtedly women thought it was to their advantage to be able to confine their efforts to work close to the hearth. Here we have another example of convenience as responsible for the division of labor between men and women.
From the dawn of the industrial era men made inroads upon the industrial sphere of women, and while they seemed to assumethose tasks most desirable from a modern point of view, nevertheless those tasks were the ones most conveniently relinquished by the women. The change was a mutual advantage and not necessarily a consequence of the arbitrary exercise of authority. Women’s interests were concentrated on industrial occupations only in so far as these occupations furthered the well-being of their families, and just as soon as they were able to shift the responsibility to others, they did so gladly, for by so doing they were brought closer to the fireside and their children.
Before the introduction of machine industry, the home of the working people stood for an economic unit as well as a social one. Women left the field for indoor work, and as soon as there existed a surplus of labor out-of-doors, they once again divided their employments with the men, the latter taking over those tasks allowing for the greatest play of skill and inventiveness, and most completely divorced from personal service. These became the textile industries and paved the way for the industrial revolution, and the substitution of machine work for hand work. Women drew their work instinctively closer to the hearth; men away from it.
Hardly the most able men according to the estimate of the time were the ones to leave the fields for a new line of work. What probably happened was that those men physically deformed or otherwise handicapped in the out-of-door work, were relegated to the fireside to assist the women. It was their specialization and concentration that made them excel in their art and bring it to a higher state of perfection than women had. Undoubtedly they were looked down on by men, and their social position was similiar to that of the tailor only a few generations ago. Literature affords us many a merry gibe at the expense of the man who earned his bread with his needle, and only recently has he taken his place in the trades on an equality with others.
When machine industry replaced hand industry a revolution was started that has not yet ended. Instead of all social and economic forces molding the home into a more compact unit, they tend to disintegrate the home and to force its dependent members from its industrial shelter.
It was at this time that great suffering was endured. The family compact had gained industrial strength by virtue of the combination, but when each individual member of that family was forced to seek a place in an industrial regime, many of them became victims of a new order they were powerless to control. Men, women, and children flocked to the factories for work, and in return for their services received a mere pittance in comparison with the economic advantages of the old economic life. Where there existed poverty, before, now dwelt misery and desolation. Men could not protect their wives and children from killing toil and although their memories carried them back to better days, they now became part of the procession of the hopelessly poor.
What happened in the warring communities of primitive times now took place in industrial communities. The old economic groups had been broken up and no readjustment taken place. Hence, each individual was forced to fight his battle and his success depended upon his own efforts. It was the predatory spirit let loose in an economic guise. The combat was more brutal in that the vanquished ones were not slain on the field but left to die in damp cellars.
As in history the status of women depended upon the status of their husbands. As a sex they asked for nothing but bread for themselves and their families. Their new economic position in the factory was supposed to be a temporary make-shift only, and their failure to recognize its permanency was perhaps one reason why all their demands were demands for the men—a chance for their husbands to support their families independent of their wives.
Little change has been effected in their status since the industrial revolution excepting an increase in their numbers in the factories. So many of them lack sufficient nourishment or leisure or power to help themselves—the same applies to the men—that they are seemingly powerless even at the present time to change their lot. The effort is coming from another class which has been far more fortunate in its economic adjustments.
The hopelessly poor are the victims of our industrial regime. Just ahead in the social scale are the middle class workers. Itis in their homes a favorable readjustment to the new economic conditions can be found. With the departure of each occupation from the home came an expansion of wants. A greater variety of food and clothing increased the kinds of work women performed. They were just as busy as when they wove and spun. If new economic problems had not arisen out of the fact that men did not receive adequate compensation for their labor to warrant a higher plane of living in the home, the women of this class would not have been compelled to change their habits of life to any extent. In many families of the middle-class, women’s work in the household has little money value unless performed in the household of another. It is when the men of the household are out of work that the small economic importance of women’s work to the family is manifest. It most often does not satisfy the primary needs for food and shelter of those about them. Here lies the essential difference between the work of the modern housewife and that of the housewife of the era before machine industry. This difference is constantly increasing and making the family more dependent for its support upon employment outside the home. As an institution the home is becoming one of sentiment alone, and not one of economic expediency.
Women’s work in the home is rapidly becoming a luxury, and less of a necessity; and unless a different economic regime is brought in, women will be compelled to add to the incomes of the families or marriage will become a luxury of the well-to-do alone. Either men of the middle-class must receive an ever increasing wage or the women engage in money-gaining occupations.
It is true many women resist the removal of all productive industry from the home to the factory, but it is like resisting a glacial movement down a mountain side. The home must adapt itself to the change to save itself. When the home no longer possesses economic value, when marriage “means a doubling of expense and the halving of income, the accountability of one person for the welfare of another, and the certainty of no resource if the sole wage earner falls by chance into the abyss ofthe unemployed,” people will not so readily enter into a relation which involves so great a responsibility and sacrifice.[115]
The number of marriages is decreasing, but the number of married women following professional pursuits is also increasing. If men are more timid than formerly in assuming matrimonial ties, or if women show as great a timidity in entering into a relation that promises hardships arising out of their complete economic dependence, the progress married women are making in the skilled industries and other lines of work compatible with their conception of their social status, will prove a large factor in restoring confidence in the mutual helpfulness made possible by marriage and tend to check the decrease of the marriage-rate.
The decline of the birth-rate is a more serious problem. A large infant mortality prevails the world over and no effective means have been found to prevent this great sacrifice of life. Indeed the decrease of the birth-rate is comparatively small when compared with the waste of life by infantile diseases. If only some means were found to prevent this waste the decrease in the birth-rate would be one more illustration of the great economy in pain and suffering achieved by an advanced civilization. The real alarming thing is not a general decrease in the birth-rate but a decrease applying to the better social classes alone. The latter are made up of individuals who have enjoyed the advantages of our social institutions. If their superiority can be traced to their natural superiority rather than to their opportunities, made possible by their economic status, there exists genuine reason for alarm; but if humanity after all is much alike the world over, and the differences between types are due to opportunity, no better means can be found to meet the problem than by affording a wider diffusion of the benefits of a higher civilization. To bring this about cities must be made sanitary places in which to live and extreme poverty must be eliminated from the child’s environment.
The decrease of the importance of women’s work in the home is not alone responsible for the changes in their status but also the modern close intercommunication of cosmopolitan groupsmade possible by modern industrial methods in the business world. The close relations existing between individuals and groups of individuals who have not always lived in the same environment, or the same kind of an environment stimulates many new desires and human faculties which might have remained dormant were the individual shut off from the close relations with the outside world.
One of the results of this interaction is a disregard for the social barriers of the past, and a leveling of educational and social opportunities so that they are within the reach of a constantly increasing number of men and women alike.
A desire for invidious distinction is a marked motive in man. He desires to excel others, at least those in his class, in the pursuits which give precedence in the eyes of others. If he has not the financial means at hand to excel with a degree of ease, he will make every possible sacrifice to maintain at least the standards of the class with which he is associated.
When the family was a close economic unit, and high class barriers existed there was little opportunity for mutual stimulation. The natural characteristic of responsiveness to suggestion was held in check by the customary standards of one’s class. Such is not true under the factory regime. The individual has access to any class so far as his economic resources and leisure permit. Hence a free play of the imitative faculty, which often takes the form of a blind imitation of the recognized superior in invidious distinction—the accepting of standards from the class above irrespective of their merits.
This is especially characteristic of women and is given expression in expensive dress, furniture, and ability to purchase services. Women show the imitative faculty to a greater degree than men for they have more leisure. Leisure above all things is most conducive to the development of desires suggested by the plane or expenditure of the class above.
The development of industry has created a vast amount of new wealth, and women more than men have profited by the great increase of productivity. Their leisure is being increased rapidly and when their men-folk are prosperous they can afford to gratify wants without taking into consideration their ultimategood. Hence women of leisure tend to form a procession of imitators, each according to her inclinations and financial standing.
The initiative faculty is a virtue when appealed to by progressive social ideals, but is a menace when it signifies an insane procession of clothes, mission furniture or oriental rugs. It is then the stuffy flat in the heart of the city is preferred to the cottage in the suburbs. In some, this inclination to follow fashion seems to grow with the increased means of communication. A childlike faith that good models will be imitated rather than bad ones is akin to thelaissez fairephilosophy that has so ignominiously failed. It is of the utmost importance that social ideals should be consciously molded.
The effect of economic changes upon the status of women have been many. They have forced and are still forcing an ever increasing number of women into the factories to compete with each other in the poorest paid field of labor. The homes of these women are a disgrace to civilization. It is seldom that the comforts or the decencies of life can be found there. These same economic forces are making it possible for many middle class workers to better their financial and social condition but they threaten the masses with poverty or the necessity of the wives entering the industrial field with their husbands. They have also made possible a widening leisure on the part of many women whose husbands are successful business men. Never in history were there so many idle women.
Only the rich and the poor who are adjusted to economic conditions can afford to marry. The one class has no fear for the future, the other class has no hope. It is in the large middle class retaining social ideals and struggling to adapt itself to changing conditions with as little sacrifice as possible, where one can best measure the effects of economic changes. It is there parents appreciate the necessity of giving their children educational advantages superior to their own. Each generation expects more of the past than the last, and what is true of individuals is true of institutions. There is a growing demand for more highly trained men and women. Hence parents appreciate the necessity of limiting the size of the family in order to meet the increased demands made upon them.
Each individual adjusts himself as best he can to his economic life, and his economic life tends to be the center of his social life. When the former changes, the change is reflected in the latter and the sum total creates a social consciousness reflected in the existing social institutions.
It is doubtful if women as a sex will ever reach the same economic and social status as men. Individual women, especially certain unmarried ones, will do so but as representative of a class in society rather than sex.
Unless some radical changes take place in society we now little dream of, the majority of women will prefer home life to active industrial careers. This will be made possible in part by the inherent gallantry of men, and a social conscience which will make fewer economic demands upon the mothers of the race than upon the fathers.
Whether one half of the race can support the other half will never be tested, for there will always be a large army of women, married and single, who will prefer their economic independence to any form of co-operation in housekeeping.
The question resolves itself ultimately into whether the average man will in the future be able to support a family without the financial assistance of his wife; and whether society can afford, either industrially or morally, to support an increasing number of idle women. The question will be solved by one of two forces and probably by both. These are economic necessity and our educational institutions. To prophesy the effects of these forces upon the status of women in the future, it would be necessary to assume that these forces themselves are in no immediate danger of undergoing radical changes. The assumption would be wrong, for the atmosphere is charged with discontent with the present economic conditions. When the latter are sufficiently controlled to assure a measure of contentment among the people the home will adjust itself like any other adaptable institution.
Many of the responsibilities formerly associated with the home are now performed by the state municipality. This changed condition is especially noticeable in the care and education of children. The functions of the state are no longer confinedexclusively to police powers, but aim through constructive legislation to bring about industrial and social conditions conducive to the welfare of all its citizens.
Through its educational policies it is possible for the government to so regulate and develop the institutions of society as to minimize some of the evils arising out of modern economic life, and to direct social ideals which will reflect themselves in the industrial habits of man.
The home and all allied institutions show the influence of economic habits, and whatever changes take place in the latter—whether resulting from a conscious social influence or alaissez-fairepolicy in industry—will in time make themselves felt in the former. The home comes nearer being an expression of the industrial development of mankind than any other institution of society.
FOOTNOTES:[115]Patten.
[115]Patten.
[115]Patten.