INTRODUCTION
In dealing with the evolution of home industry and its effects upon the
status of women, it will be necessary to note briefly the status of the
sexes before marked differentiation took place.
As a matter of fact, we know very little about mankind before the
beginning of recorded history. It is true we have various examples of
primitive culture existing at the present time, and to a considerable
degree they illustrate the different stages of culture through which
civilization has passed; but there is no proof that different types
of social development have not existed in the earlier periods. These
different types may have been out of harmony with the existing
environment, and hence were eliminated by the struggle for existence.
It does not follow that the eliminated types were inferior to the
surviving one, but that they proved less fit in a conflict of certain
forces. For instance, a peaceable race has often been at a disadvantage
when contending with a warlike and aggressive one, and its institutions
have been overthrown in the struggle.
What has been true in the conflict of races may be equally true in
a conflict for authority between the sexes, if such a conflict ever
existed. In a period of history when severe struggles between peoples
were common, feminine rule was not compatible with such struggle.
The commonly accepted theory is that men hold their position of
recognized superiority over women by virtue of an inherent superiority;
that sexual differences as measured by world achievements are
characteristic of all races. This is the androcentric theory which is
described by Ward as “the view that the male sex is primary and the
female sex secondary in the organic scheme, that all things center,
as it were, about the male, and that the female, though necessary to
carrying out the scheme, is only the means of continuing the life of
the globe, but it is otherwise an unimportant accessory, and incidental
factor in the general result.”[1]
This theory has been accepted as a fact for ages; it has been
sanctioned by all religions and by custom. In the minds of many people
it had been established as one of the certainties removed from the
province of doubt. Indeed, so many facts have been brought forth in
proof of this theory that in the past to question it simply invited
ridicule.
According to the androcentric theory man alone is responsible for
the development of our social institutions, and woman’s progressive
evolution has been one of constant adaptation; never one of innovation.
“Woman is the lesser man” and her achievements have always been
measured by masculine standards.
A new theory has been advanced by Ward which merits careful
consideration. He calls it the gynaecocentric theory. It is the “view
that the female sex is primary and the male secondary in the organic
scheme, that originally and normally all things center, as it were,
about the female, and that the male, though not necessary to carrying
out the scheme, was developed under the operation of the principle of
advantage to secure organic progress through the crossing of strains.
The theory further claims that the apparent male superiority in the
human race and in certain of the higher animals and birds is the result
of specialization in extra-normal directions due to adventitious causes
which have nothing to do with the general scheme, but which can be
explained on biological principles; that it only applies to certain
characters, and to a relatively small number of genera and families.
It accounts for the prevalence of the androcentric theory by the
superficial character of human knowledge of such subjects, chiefly
influenced by the illusion of the near, but largely, in the case of man
at least, by tradition, convention, and prejudice.”[2]
Students of primitive history are not agreed as to whether there has
ever existed a people among whom women held sway. The tendency is to
discredit the evidence offered for the theory of female rule. If
such peoples existed, none have survived to play an important part in
history. This fact seems to indicate that, other things being equal,
female rule was not compatible with the evolution of our present
civilization, if by female rule we mean the recognized superiority of
the female sex at a time when authority rested solely in the hands of
the successful fighters on behalf of the tribe.
Political power implied the exercise of protection. Hence if women held
the balance of power in a primitive community constantly engaged in
warfare--success in warfare being the only measure of one’s worth--the
insecurity of their lives, and the constant depletion of their numbers
would materially affect the increase of numbers within the tribe, and
in time weaken the tribe in contending with enemies. Elimination or
absorption by other tribes would be inevitable.
Without discussing the theory that woman is by nature conservative
while man is variable, it is evident that only the women who clung
most tenaciously to custom left offspring. The women who varied
from the established order by their radical or individualistic
characteristics devoted their lives to a cause, usually of a religious
nature, and left no offspring. On the other hand, the most aggressive
men were most successful in winning wives and were able to transmit
their variable qualities, while less aggressive natures tended to
leave no descendants. Therefore, much that is attributed to sexual
differentiation may be due in part to an environment favorable to
a type; to social institutions more favorable to the survival of
conservative females and variable males; to the elimination of those
females in whom inherited variable tendencies did not remain dormant.
It is reasonable to believe that in the primitive horde there existed
a degree of equality between the sexes, but “at the beginning of the
historical period woman was under the complete subjection of man. She
had so long been a mere slave and drudge that she had lost all the
higher attributes she originally possessed.”[3]
Many forces have played an important part in the evolution of the
social status of women. The mother instinct which prompted women to
prefer the interests of their children to their own prevented them from
concentrating their attention on activities not directly concerned with
the care of the children and made it possible to subject a whole sex to
an inferior position, irrespective of their numbers, and to make them
apparently contented with their lot.
The beginning of the race was associated with a keen struggle for
subsistence. If promiscuity was the earliest form of mating, the
greatest burden of support would naturally devolve upon woman and
would handicap her when it came to meeting or evading enemies. But if
the father of her children remained as a protector, at least while
the child was helpless, this handicap would be removed. Whether she
was actually provided with subsistence or protected from enemies in
the beginning, we know she did receive protection by virtue of her
sex before the race advanced very far in its social development. This
protection largely exempted her from warlike struggle, but it also
deprived her almost entirely of the communal authority that had its
basis in such a struggle. What was a gain to the individual woman was a
loss to her sex in social position.
The supremacy that one sex, class or race gains over another, does not
necessarily arise out of far sighted action, having in view a definite
goal. In the early struggle of our race, the loss of power by woman and
the gain by man was incidental and not the result of a struggle for
authority between the sexes.
The same general principle applied to economic life. Whatever woman
gained in the early industrial activities of the race which gave her
the right to claim precedence in this field, she lost as industry
departed from the hearth.
History does not show women struggling for authority before the
domination of machine industry, or struggling to maintain a position
which would give them prestige in the tribe or state. It is true
women have taken part in some of the great movements and revolutions
of society, such as the Crusades, or the French revolution but only
when the country in question was thrown into an emotional state, and
when all other considerations were pushed into the background by the
predominant passion. They have taken part in these struggles, and
often 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.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Ward, _Pure Sociology_, p. 364.
[2] Ward, _Pure Sociology_, pp. 296-7.
[3] Ward, _Pure Sociology_, p. 364.
WOMEN AND ECONOMIC EVOLUTION
CHAPTER I
THE STATUS OF WOMEN AND PRIMITIVE INDUSTRY
Facts brought to light by ethnologists and anthropologists indicate
that our prehistoric 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.
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.”[4]
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.
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.”[5]
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.
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. His first 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.” 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.”[6]
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.”[7]
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 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.[8]
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.”[9]
From necessity women were conservative in their habits since a
stationary life was most conducive to the protection and care of
offspring. That they should follow those occupations which had to do
with the preparation and consumption of food, or with the personal
services closely allied to the satisfying of the need for food and
clothing, seems natural and reasonable since the children looked to
them for those vital services.
It is but a short step from the rendering of personal services to
offspring to the rendering of services to a mature man or woman. The
performing of services for the father may have been at first voluntary;
later it became fixed as a habit and finally established as a custom.
This performing of personal services--so conspicuous among peoples of
primitive culture, is the basis for concluding the oppression of women.
“What is largely due to custom is taken to be sheer tyranny on the part
of the stronger sex, and the wife is pronounced an abject slave of her
husband, destitute of all rights.”[10]
Our insight into primitive culture shows a state of society in which
women held a subordinate position, and where the authority rested
primarily with men. The status of women had become fixed by tradition
and custom and to depart from it meant ridicule and contempt.
Nevertheless primitive woman seemed content with her lot; and freedom
which meant opportunity to struggle against one’s enemies, was not
for her a desideration. If she thought at all of her position of
subordination--she probably did not--she would have concluded that she
was the gainer rather than the loser when she gave up authority in
return for protection.
The authority of one sex over the other arose spontaneously and
unconsciously by the exercise of the function of protection which in
a measure determined choice of occupation. It is true men chose those
occupations allowing the greatest versatility and demanding much
activity and quickness of motion, and that women were generally barred
from them; but hunting and warfare--the two occupations followed by
primitive man before the era of pastoral and agricultural life--would
have deprived women of the security and protection so essential to the
preservation of the race.
When women accepted the protection of men, the women had a chance to
survive and reproduce. But the men were forced to fight and only those
survived who were able to overcome the enemy.
Before long women outnumbered men; and the motive responsible for the
division of occupation was lost sight of. Protection was sought instead
of being voluntarily given, and women surrendered more in proportion as
their value decreased in the estimation of men.
As long as the number of men and women was approximately equal, the
relations between the sexes were more likely to be based upon mutual
interests and sympathy. But when one sex far outnumbered the other,
degeneracy set in. Wherever we find primitive peoples engaged in almost
constant warfare, women outnumber men and the status of the former is
low. Women are apparently willing to be oppressed to win favor in the
eyes of their lord and master.
There are no historical facts indicating that women as a class
resisted the encroachments upon their personal rights by the men.
Few individuals are willing to fight for authority when stimulation
is lacking; or to struggle for an abstract right not affecting their
habits of life. Women followed the line of least resistance. It led
to their oppression, but it suited the conservative habit fostered by
maternity, and in a measure offered them greater security at a time
opportune from the standpoint of the race.
The fate of women seems less hard when judged by the standards of
justice and consideration practiced by men and women alike. “When we
learn that where torture of enemies is the custom, the women out-do
the men--when we read of the cruelties perpetrated by the two female
Dyak chiefs described by Rajah Brooks, or of the horrible deeds which
Winrod Reade narrates of a blood-thirsty African Queen, we are shown
that it is not lack of will but lack of power which prevents primitive
women from displaying natures equally brutal with those of primitive
men.”[11]
Wherever the militant spirit is absent, there exists greater equality
between man and woman, and between man and man. Industrialism in its
simple forms is conducive to the spirit of equality; and among those
tribes where industry is the chief occupation of the people, and where
exploitation of other peoples ceases to be a habit, the position of
woman is the best.
A factor not to be overlooked in estimating the status of peoples is
the nature of the environment. No matter whether the inclinations
of the people foster militancy or industrialism, if the natural
environment is unfavorable to the procuring of a steady supply of food,
the people is checked in its development by too great odds against it.
If the natural environment is so friendly as to supply food without
effort on the part of the consumer--as is true of many southern
climes--stagnation or degeneracy results from a lack of stimulus to
exertion.
What is true of a race or tribe may also be true of women. They
show the least physical and mental development where conditions are
extremely oppressive; and a moral indifference and indolence where life
demands little physical or mental effort for its maintenance.
Irrespective of its immediate cause the oppression of women brings
about in time a differentiation of the sexes industrially and
especially socially. We have seen among many peoples the assignment
of industrial employments to the women and the militant activities
to the men; but this division is not a true measure of the degree
of subordination of the women. The division of employments is in a
measure influenced by the nature of the environment and by the habits
and customs having their roots in a natural environment in the distant
past. Such a division may originally be based upon woman’s convenience
as well as man’s, but probably more often upon that of the latter.
When warfare became a less constant occupation, men entered
agriculture, which had been considered women’s own field of work.
They did not assume the least skilled part of the work, as does a
class of industrial workers when it enters a new field, but chose
the occupations most compatible with their inclinations, while women
confined their efforts to the more monotonous pursuits. Their work was
not necessarily easier than that of the men, nor were they shielded
from those tasks requiring great physical strength.
It is true the work pursued by the recognized superior is considered
more honorific than the work done by the social inferior, but the work
itself generally requires a greater degree of skill and ingenuity.
Such honorific work called for greater application and more energy
than women were accustomed to bestow upon their occupations for they
were always hampered by the demands of their children. During the
agricultural stage, therefore, as in the earlier stage, the women
always did the work requiring the least initiative. In time the women
were largely superseded in the monotonous out-of-door work by the
slave, thus gaining time and energy for the ever increasing indoor
occupations. Through slavery “it is certain that a means was ... found
of maintaining intact the independent household economy with its
accustomed division of labor, and at the same time of making progress
toward an increase in the number and variety of wants.”[12]
Women’s position in primitive society has often been mistakenly
compared to that of slaves destitute of all authority and personal
rights. Personal rights are very precious to the individual when no
bond of affection exists making the interests of the master and the
slave identical. But just here lies the fundamental difference between
the position of women and that of slaves. The relation between master
and slave was an economic one while that between husband and wife was
personal as well as economic. It called for mutual concessions, the
woman most often subordinating her interests and wishes to those of
the man, who in turn assumed in many instances the entire economic
responsibility.
New labor-saving methods were employed in agriculture, making it
possible to meet the increased demand for agricultural products. But
not so with the in-door work. New wants arose calling for a greater
variety in food and clothing. In all probability the men least able
physically were superceded in the field by the more robust, and the
former were assigned those household tasks least affected by custom,
and most easily separated from the immediate jurisdiction of the
women. Such employment developed the textile industries.
Never in history have we examples of women excelling men in attaining
the ideal of the time, whether militant, social or industrial. And if
these ideals represented a progressive development of mankind, women
have always been far behind. At the present the industrial ideal
predominates. Although we know that in primitive times women excelled
men in the industrial arts, it was at a time when the militant ideal
was the dominant one. The controlling ideal has always been shaped
by men and their occupations and always will be shaped by those in
authority.
The spirit of the time has corresponded to masculine achievement and
women’s progress has been measured by their success in adaptation. It
is of little consequence that women excel in industry in a period of
military precedence, or socially in an epoch of industrialism, since
the standard of measurement is fixed by masculine performance. The
ideal to be attained by either sex is always a masculine one.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Marshall, _Principles of Economics_, I, pp. 10-11. Ed. 4.
[5] Ward, _Pure Sociology_, p. 360.
[6] Quoted by Thomas, _Sex and Society_, p. 125.
[7] Mason, _Woman’s Share in Primitive Culture_, pp. 2-3.
[8] Thomas, _Sex and Society_, p. 134.
[9] Westermarck, _The Position of Women in Early Civilization_, _The
American Journal of Sociology_, Nov., 1904, p. 410.
[10] Westermarck, _The Position of Women in Early Civilization_, The
American Journal of Sociology, Nov., 1904, p. 411.
[11] Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, I, p. 747.
[12] Bücher, _Industrial Evolution_, p. 96.
CHAPTER II
THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN EARLY HISTORICAL TIMES
The world furnishes many examples of the rise and decline of
civilizations before our era. Their art and literature often show
social institutions comparing favorably with those of modern times.
Almost without exception their decline can be traced to the invasion
of people of less culture but greater warlike propensities. The
institutions of these warlike peoples are the ones which survived, and
upon which rest our modern institutions.
As we have seen the primitive society, militancy favors a greater
differentiation of sex status and of work than industrialism. In the
primarily industrial nations, men’s and women’s work often overlap, and
although we can recognize a sex division of work, the line constantly
shifts to the economic advantage of women. In a militant society, the
women of the higher classes are often shown a deference unknown in the
lower classes, but this deference is not shown them as a sex alone,
but because of their relation to those who stand highest in the state.
Where the women of the higher classes enjoy rights and privileges
other than those reserved to them by the state, they are bestowed
upon the individual alone, and not upon the sex in general. They have
their basis in family ties making the family a unit in its economic
interests, as well as in its social and political interests. No matter
how conservative men may be in their attitude toward the political,
social, and industrial equality of men and women, their prejudices do
not weigh against family interests, or apply to the females of their
own families.
Militant types of society have not recognized the political rights
of women as women. But for all that their women have often played
important roles in history by virtue of the power coming to them
through some male relative who was more anxious to delegate his power
to them than to see it pass to strangers, or to men of remoter blood
relationship.
In the early, less militant societies we see that certain rights of
women were recognized. In Egypt “the husband appears to have entered
the house of his wives rather than the wives to have entered his, and
this appearance of inferiority was so marked that the Greeks were
deceived by it. They affirmed that the women were supreme in Egypt; the
man at the time of marriage promised obedience to her, and entered into
a contract not to raise any objection to her commands.”[13]
Hobhouse says, “It is very possible that the preservation of relics
of mother-right was among the forces tending to the better condition
of women in Egypt. These were augmented toward the close of the
independent history of Egypt by the rise of free contract and the
important part taken by women in the industrial and commercial life. In
these relations and in social intercourse generally it is allowed on
all hands that their position was remarkably free.”[14]
In Babylonia there were times when women held a position of
independence and authority. “The wife could act apart from her husband,
could enter into partnership, could trade with her money and conduct
lawsuits in her own name.”
Sayce says further, “Women, as well as men, enjoyed the advantages of
education. This evidence from the Babylonian contract-tablets, in which
we find women appearing, as well as men, as plaintiffs or defendants
in suits, as partners in commercial transactions, and as signing, when
need arose, their names. There was none of that jealous exclusion of
women in ancient Babylonia which characterizes the East of today, and
it is probable that boys and girls pursued their studies at the same
school.”[15]
Among the Greeks of the Homeric age, women held a position of respect
and dignity but in the age of Pericles “little pains were taken with
their education. Before their marriage, they managed their households
and seldom left their dwellings.”[16]
In spite of paternal authority so firmly established by custom all
through early history we find individual women conspicuous by virtue of
their cleverness, intelligence or charm giving them power in affairs of
state. When Rome was at its height, there were men solicitors acting in
behalf of women in litigation and in the management of their property.
In fact, “the mass of capital which was collected in the hands of women
appeared to the statesmen of the time so dangerous, that they resorted
to the extravagant expedient of prohibiting by law the testamentary
nomination of women as heirs, and even sought by highly arbitrary
practice to deprive women for the most part of those collateral
inheritances which fell to them without testament.”[17]
The Roman family was absolutely controlled by the father. His
jurisdiction extended not only to the women and children of his
household but to his grown sons after they had established a household
of their own.[18]
The attitude of the law toward a class of men is a fair criterion of
their status; but this is not true of the women. Since they do not
constitute a distinct class or industrial stratum, law is more apt to
reflect their status as determined by tradition and custom, than to
determine their status.
Mommsen below says, “Wife and child did not exist merely for the
house-father’s sake in the sense in which property exists only for the
proprietor, or in which the subjects of an absolute state exist only
for the king; they were the objects indeed of a legal right, on his
part, but they had at the same time capacities of right of their own;
they were not things but persons. Their rights were dormant in respect
of exercise, simply because the unity of the household demanded that it
should be governed by a single representative.”[19]
Long before legislation took a more enlightened attitude toward the
legal and political rights of women, the old laws relating to women had
become antiquated. “Even in public matters women already began to have
a will of their own and occasionally, as Cato thought, ‘to rule the
rulers of the world.’”[20]
Irrespective of the legal and social status of women, early history
shows practically the same division of work between the sexes as in
primitive times. If there is any apparent difference, it is in a
greater diversity of household tasks for women, and the narrowing of
the limits of their out-of-door tasks. Men continue to make inroads
upon the increasing industrial work of women without changing the
nature of it in any of its essentials.
In Rome within the house “woman was not servant but mistress.” Exempted
from the tasks of corn-grinding and cooking which according to Roman
ideas belonged to the menials, the Roman housewife devoted herself
in the main to the superintendence of her maid servants, and to the
accompanying labours of the distaff, which was to woman what the plow
was to man.[21]
The characteristic work of the Roman women of the well-to-do
classes was practically that of the well-to-do classes of all early
civilizations. The work, however, of the wives of the poor was in
marked contrast. The Ligurian women “laboured, like the men, at
the hardest work, and hired themselves out for the harvest in the
neighboring countries.”[22]
History throws little light upon the conditions of the laboring
people in early civilization. Although they were the foundation on
which society rested, they were considered of no consequence in the
development of the state excepting in their capacity as warriors.
Hence, our knowledge of the manners and customs of the people must be
gleaned from data regarding the well-to-do classes.
Under feudalism, status was well defined and the individual counted
for little in the social regime. The position of the lord was based
upon military prowess, and he took little or no direct part in the
industrial occupations of the people. The laborer was his property,
and the lord in return agreed to protect him. Guizot says, “There was
nothing morally common between the holder of the fief and his serfs.
They formed part of his estate; they were his property; and under this
word property are comprised, not only all the rights which we delegate
to the public magistrate to exercise in the name of the state, but
likewise all those which we possess over private property; the right
of making laws, of levying taxes, of inflicting punishment, as well as
that of disposing of them or selling them.”[23]
The serf was in no wise a part of the feudal lord’s family nor did the
women of his class experience any of the male chivalry which we are
accustomed to associate with this period.
The status of the women of the serfs was little better than that of
slaves. The difference between the status of men and women of this
class was probably no greater than that between the lord and his wife,
but the difference was emphasized in that there was a greater range of
abuse on the part of the social superior toward the social inferior
where women were concerned.
In the house of the lord “the chief, however violent, and brutal his
outdoor exercises, must habitually return into the bosom of his family.
He there finds his wife and children, and scarcely any but them; they
alone are his constant companions; they alone are interested in all
that concerns him. It could not but happen in such circumstances, that
domestic life must have acquired a vast influence, nor is there any
lack of proofs that it did so.”[24]
The predominance which domestic life acquired among the upper classes
during feudal times did much toward elevating the women of these
classes to social equality with men.
Although during this period there exists among the people a great
difference in the kind of work performed by men and the work performed
by women in the higher classes, nevertheless the position of the wife
was one of respect, and often one of authority. When the lord was away
from home on warlike expeditions the wife assumed at times her lord’s
duties.[25]
“Women exercised to the full the powers that were attached to the land
either by proxy, by bailiffs, or in person. They levied troops, held
courts of justice, coined money, and took part in the assembly of peers
that met at the court of the lord.”[26]
Parallel with the decline of the feudal system is the rapid growth
of towns. Women did not take a conspicuous part in the work carried
on in the towns, but that they were not excluded from the industries
is apparent when we find them in the trade guilds as early as the
fifteenth century. “Labor disputes arose over the questions of wages
and piece-work, of holidays, of the employment of women and cheap
workers.”[27]
Before the great pestilence of 1348, women were employed as
agricultural laborers. Their wages were invariably lower than the wages
of men. This difference in wages can be partially accounted for on the
ground that there existed a marked difference in the nature of their
work. Women as farm hands were employed in “dibbling beans, in weeding
corn, in making hay, in assisting the sheep-shearers and washing the
sheep, in filling the muck carts with manure, and in spreading it
upon the lands, in shearing corn, but especially in reaping stubble
after the ears of corn had been cut off by the shearers, in binding
and stacking sheaves, in thatching ricks and houses, in watching in
the fields to prevent cattle straying into the corn, or armed with a
sling, in scaring birds from the seed of ripening corn, and in similar
occupations. When these failed, there were the winding and spinning
of wool ‘to stop a gap.’ These were the employments not only of the
laborers’ wives; the wife and daughters of the farmer took their part
in all farm works with other women, and worked side by side with their
husbands and fathers. After the ‘black death’, women shared for a time
in the general rise of wages, and were seldom paid less than two-pence
for a day’s work, a sum not unfrequently paid a woman for her daily
work in the fields before the time of the great pestilence. This amount
of wages, however, was diminished by one of the statutes of labourers,
which required that every woman not having a craft, nor possessing
property of her own, should work on a farm equally with a man, and
be subjected to the same regulations as to wages as her husband and
brothers, and like them should not leave the manor or district in which
she usually lived to seek work elsewhere.”[28]
In the early stages of industry “wool and silk were woven and spun
in scattered villages by families who eked out their subsistence by
agriculture.”[29]
Often in the sixteenth century the wealthy graziers were clothiers and
employed the men and women of the neighborhood to make into cloth the
wool raised upon their own lands. “In many districts the farmers and
labourers used few things which were not the work of their own hands,
or which had not been manufactured a few miles from their homes. The
poet Wordsworth’s account of the farmers’ families in Westmorland, who
grew on their own land the corn with which they were fed, spun in their
own home the wool with which they were clothed, and supplied the rest
of their wants by the sale of yarn in the neighboring market town was
not so far inapplicable to other parts of England as we might at first
imagine.”[30]
With the introduction of machinery the paternal attitude of the master
toward the employee disappeared. Since the workman at this time had no
political rights the decline of the spirit of paternalism exposed him
to easy industrial exploitation.
Under the domestic system of industry the entire family was engaged
under one roof in the spinning or weaving of cloth. The spinning
was done by the women and children, and the weaving by the men.
Often it took as many as six spinners to keep one weaver busy, thus
necessitating the employment of the women in the neighborhood when
there were not sufficient spinners in the household.[31]
This system of industry was revolutionized by the invention of the
spinning-jenny, the water-frame, and the self-acting mule, and the
application of the steam engine to cotton manufacture. With the
introduction of these inventions into the cotton industry the modern
factory system arose. Those employers who could not compete with the
new methods were forced to give up their small domestic factories and
seek employment in the towns. In 1811 the agricultural population of
England was 35 per cent of the whole, and within twenty years it had
declined to 28 per cent.[32]
Before the introduction of machinery, industrial occupations kept
pace with increasing wants, but so little progress was made from
one generation to the other as to give the impression of a static
condition. Class lines were sharply drawn, and all authority rested
with those whose property holdings were sufficient to place them
with the privileged classes. Their political power increased with
their material prosperity but neither political power nor material
prosperity fell to the laboring classes. “Except as a member of a mob,
the labourer had not a shred of political influence. The power of
making laws was concentrated in the hands of the land owners, the great
merchant princes, and a small knot of capitalists, manufacturers who
wielded that power?--was it not natural in the interests of their class,
rather than for the good of the people.”[33]
From the sixteenth to the nineteenth century little change was
effected in the home life of the people. Many of the houses had “but
a single great fireplace.” At the beginning of the nineteenth century
came many improvements in household affairs. “The common use of the
friction matches after 1830 saved an infinitude of pains to the cook,
the workman, and the smoker; instead of the iron pots and Dutch ovens
came the air-tight cook stove, an unspeakable good friend to the
housewife; for the open fire was substituted the wood-stove, and then
the coal-stove, which leaked gas but saved toil and trouble; for the
labor of the needle which has kept feminine fingers employed from the
time of Penelope, came the sewing-machine, rude enough at first, which
revolutionized the making of clothing.”[34]
History shows from the earliest times the employment of women of the
higher social classes within doors. Although the women of the laboring
classes are employed extensively in the fields there is always an
apparent tendency for them to center their activities about the hearth.
The performance of out-door tasks among women is determined as much by
their class status as sex status. The outdoor work of women resulted
less from the tyranny of one sex over another than from the tyranny of
one class over another. Whatever the lot of the women field laborers,
the lot of their husbands and brothers was little better.
The difference between the status of men and women is estimated by
the nature of their work when engaged in the same general occupation
as agriculture. Women seem to be deprived of the element of choice in
their work since they perform the most monotonous and uninteresting
tasks, and the men perform the work allowing for the greatest play
of individuality and skill. How much this division of work is due
to differences of authority, and how much to the difference in the
assumption of responsibility, is difficult to say. It is certainly more
convenient for women not to assume responsibilities for out-door work
when they have to care for small children; and what may be attributed
to an exercise of authority of men over women, may be due to custom
having its basis in convenience. It is interesting to note that in
practically all civilized societies women are the first to profit by
any change doing away with the necessity of all the members of the
family being employed in the field. This fact alone would indicate
a common recognition of the necessity of protecting women from the
severest work for the good of the race. It may have its basis, too, in
the inherent chivalry of man toward woman.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] Maspero, _Dawn of Civilization_, p. 53.
[14] Hobhouse, _Evolution of Morals_, I, p. 189.
[15] Sayce, _Babylonians and Assyrians_.
[16] Fisher, _The Beginnings of Christianity_, p. 199.
[17] Mommsen, _History of Rome_, II, p. 484.
[18] Mommsen, _History of Rome_, I, p. 91.
“The grown up son might establish a separate household or, as the
Romans expressed it, maintain his own cattle (perculium) assigned to
him by his father; but in law all that the son acquired, whether by
his own labour or by gift from a stranger, whether in his father’s
household or in his own, remained the father’s property.”
[19] Mommsen, _History of Rome_, I, p. 93.
[20] Mommsen, _History of Rome_, II, p. 484-5.
[21] Mommsen, _History of Rome_, I, p. 89.
[22] Durny, _History of Rome_, I. Sec. 1, pp. 54-55.
[23] Guizot, _History of Civilization_, I, pp. 92-93.
[24] Guizot, _History of Civilization_, VI, p. 91.
[25] Green, _Town Life in the Fifteenth Century_, p. 264-5.
[26] Ostrogorski, _The Right of Women_, p. 2.
[27] Green, _Town Life in the Fifteenth Century_, II, p. 88.
[28] Denton, _England in the Fifteenth Century_, pp. 219-220.
[29] Toynbee, _The Industrial Revolution_, p. 15.
[30] Toynbee, _The Industrial Revolution_, p. 181.
[31] Cheyney, _Industrial and Social History of England_, p. 206.
[32] Toynbee, _The Industrial Revolution_, p. 88.
[33] Toynbee, _The Industrial Revolution_, p. 186.
[34] Hart, _National Ideals Historically Traced_, pp. 188-189.
CHAPTER III
THE EFFECTS OF INDUSTRIAL CHANGES UPON THE HOMES OF THE WORKING POOR
Under the domestic system of industry the lord or the master assumed a
moral responsibility for the welfare of his working people. It was his
recognized duty to care for them when in distress. Although this system
of industry centered great power in the hands of a few, and admitted
of great abuse, it relieved the workman of a sense of responsibility
for the future. With the introduction of machinery, this protection
afforded by the master ceased along with the servitude of the worker.
A prop was removed from the working people as well as a weight. The
immediate result was almost disastrous.
Under the old domestic system there was little encouragement of
individual initiative, and the routine of life was subject to few,
if any, disturbances that thrust great responsibilities upon the
individual. Initiative was a characteristic of the master but the poor
worker was taught obedience from the cradle. He was never stimulated
nor encouraged to start out on a new line for himself. In other
words, he and his family were protected from the uncertainties and
responsibilities imposed upon the modern workman. His standard of
living was necessarily low. Hunger was not unknown, but it was apt to
be a hunger common to all in his class, and so seemingly inevitable,
rather than a hunger endured by his family because of his failure in
the every day industrial struggle.
The cheapened cost of production of machine industry played havoc
with the small domestic manufacturer. His employees were forced into
the cities to compete for work at the machine a new experience which
was markedly reflected in the homes of the workers. The industrial
conditions of the domestic workers in England when forced to compete
with machine industry, were similar to those pictured by Dawson when he
says of Germany, “the condition of the house workers in most country
districts is lamentable, and in towns it is not much better. It would,
indeed, be difficult to exaggerate the misery which has for years been
the lot of this class of workers. There, as in Silesia, a hand-weaver
is glad to earn 5s. or 6s. for work which occupies nine days of from
sixteen to eighteen hours (less than a halfpenny per hour), while his
wife toils six hours a day for three weeks to complete a web which will
bring her an equal sum, the problem how to make ends meet suggests to
the social economist many reflections.”[35]
The bringing together of laborers into industrial centers deprived
them of the use of land for agricultural purposes. This increased the
laborer’s dependence upon industrial conditions, and upon his employer.
His employer was now an individual tending to be indifferent to his
employe’s well-being and considering him only as so much labor power to
be utilized for his advantage.
The laborer found his relations to his new master purely economic, and
he himself responsible for his personal welfare and the welfare of his
family. His sickness and misfortune, though of social importance, was
no longer of economic importance to his employer since the supply of
labor equalled or exceeded the demand for it.
A few individuals profited by the breaking down of class barriers,
and asserted an individuality in harmony with economic conditions.
But the bulk of the people, either from sheer inefficiency or lack of
opportunity failed to get a foot-hold and constituted a class easily
exploited by the more successful.
The literature of the period of transition pictures vividly the
sufferings endured by the families of the workers. The poverty and
misery of thousands resulting from the adjustment to machine industry
appealed to all classes of society, and while the essayists and
novelists made a pathetic appeal to the general public, the economists
attempted in vain to suggest some alleviation for the existing distress.
The poorest class of workers was composed largely of persons who
were highly skilled in the handicraft stage, but were now forced into
occupations requiring little training, and open to labor formerly
considered inefficient. Not only was the number of persons needed to
turn out the finished product much smaller than formerly, but the work
formerly done by men could be done by women and children.
The labor of women was in greater demand than that of men. “In 1839,
of 31,632 employees in the worsted mills, 18,416, or considerably more
than half, were under eighteen years of age, and of the 13,216 adults,
10,192 were women, leaving only 3,024 adult men among more than 30,000
laborers.”[36]
Although cheap labor lowered the cost of production, it did not
benefit the laborer who helped to bring it about, for his standard of
consumption was below that which his production represented. His work
supplied a higher demand than that of his class, and what was his loss
was another’s gain. The greatest benefit of cheapened production fell
to those classes not depending for their living upon their manual work,
or, who received good wages by virtue of the demand for their skill.
Nowhere are the degenerating possibilities that lurk in industrial
changes more plainly seen than in the homes of the unskilled workers in
England early in the nineteenth century. With the introduction of the
factory system the home in many cases became merely a place to sleep
and eat. Miss Orne pictures the home life of poor families where man
and wife are employed.
In the chain, nail and bolt making industries man and wife stood
over the same forge, doing practically the same work for they often
exchanged work to break the monotony of their toil. But the wife “took
care of the home in addition to factory work.”
The married women appear to be as numerous as the unmarried. There is
a general custom in the district for boys and girls of 17 or so to
marry, and for each to continue at work, living in the homes of their
respective parents. Older married women are generally found in the
small workshop of the husband or some near relation.[37]
With few exceptions the “homes belonging to women who work either
in factories or home work shops are very nearly desolate. The meals
consist of bread and butter and tea, with a little cold bacon for
dinner. The tea is made from a kettle heated at the forge, and thus
the cares of the housekeeping are reduced to a minimum. There is no
knowledge of cooking, and therefore no variety of diet. The children
troup into the workshop as they come from school, and in fact, there is
no home life at all.”[38]
Such homes are typical of workers where the husband and wife are
compelled to enter the factory in order to feed and clothe themselves
and their children. Many of them are ignorant--possess little authority
and are indifferent to the exercises of the authority they do possess.
Their work does not allow them sufficient energy nor do the financial
returns afford them the needed nourishment for a healthy body and mind.
What is true of England is true of all countries where modern methods
of industry are practiced, and where the state has not taken steps to
check the evils arising out of the system.
Gohre, who has made a careful study of a large manufacturing
establishment in industrial Saxony says, “Think for a moment of the
incomes and the homes of the working men as I have described them;
under such conditions it becomes almost impossible for the average man
to realize the beautiful old Christian ideal of the family, about which
we hear so much from the pulpit, let him try as he may * * * Think how
the daily struggle for existence often compels the daily absence of
both parents from the home, as well as the presence of strangers in
the household, sometimes coarse and lawless people, and how this must
interfere with any sort of regular training of the children.”[39]
Keeping boarders and lodgers--especially lodgers--is a common method of
increasing the income of the family. High rent imposes upon them the
necessity of resorting to some measure to increase the income of the
family above that which represents the remuneration of the father for
his daily toil. The burden of keeping boarders and lodgers falls upon
the wife, but this source of income is seldom added when estimating the
amount contributed by the wife to the family income.
Many of the evil effects of mothers being employed in factories is
apparent to all, but the crowding of the home with strangers is no
less disastrous to family life. The economic goal is the only possible
one and the family loses its ethical purpose. The Pittsburgh Survey
emphasized the effect of overcrowding the home. “As half of the family
use the kitchen for sleeping, there is a close mingling of the lodgers
with the family which endangers the children’s morals. In only four
instances were there girls over fourteen found in the families taking
lodgers, but even the younger children learn evil quickly from the free
spoken men. One man in a position to know the situation intimately,
spoke of the appalling familiarity with vice among children in these
families.”[40]
In the city of York, England, the wages paid for unskilled work are
often insufficient to provide food, shelter, and clothing for a family
of moderate size, “in a state of bare physical efficiency.” Of the
income of those families receiving less than 18s weekly the women
contribute 50 per cent and the men 8 per cent. The small proportion
contributed by the men of the household is due to a large number of
families in which the father is either dead or sick. Where the income
is 18s and under 21s per week and the family of a moderate size the
male heads of the family contribute 76 per cent and the female head of
the household 13.3 per cent. With the increase of the weekly earnings
of the men, women contribute less and less.[41]
The investigation of Mr. Rowntree shows conclusively that married women
of the poorest classes do not engage in industry outside the home for
the sake of pin money. They work because circumstances compel them to
do so, and just as soon as the economic pressure is somewhat relieved
married women remain in their homes.
The statement is made in Women’s Work and Wages, that “Nearly all the
home makers who answered the question as to why they worked gave one
of three reasons. The most frequent was that the husband’s wages were
either too small or too irregular to keep the home. Fifty-two per cent
gave their answer in many varying forms, of which a frequent one was,
‘It is all very well at first, but what are you to do when you have
three or four children like little steps around you?’”
“Others had worked all their lives; if the husband is a labourer
earning at best 18s. per week and liable to many weeks without work, no
other course seems possible.”[42]
Miss Collet says, “I have never yet come across a married woman in the
working classes with such eagerness for pocket-money that she would
work for it at the rate of 1/2d or 1d an hour. Whenever I found women
who said they worked at very low rates they have been working for their
living and for that of their children; their husbands have always been
men disabled or out of work.”[43]
Frequently the wife of the unskilled worker does not go to the factory;
her work is brought to her in her home. This is a great convenience
to her for it enables her to remain with her children who are often
too small to be left alone and it is impossible to take them to the
factory. “The women who take work home from ware-houses, factories, or
sub-contracting agents are, with comparatively few exceptions, married
or widowed, if we exclude from consideration that large class described
as dressmakers or seamstresses. The home workers are to be found in
every grade of society among the wage-earning class; in the home of
the middle-class clerk and in the room of the dock laborer; rarely, I
think, in the tradesmen class, where wives can add to the family income
more effectually by assisting in the management of the shop.”[44]
The taking of work into the home is to the advantage of the employer
as well as to the immediate advantage of the employee. It saves the
employer rent and tools and procures him cheaper labor. Women can
afford to work for less under their own roof when it is a question
of working for less or not at all. These women do not often compete
with men, for their work is the poorest paid and the least skilled.
Few men compete with women in the lower grades of work unless they
are physically unable to compete with men for the better kinds of
employments. On the other hand women usually perform some branch of
work which is wholly abandoned to them by the men and they refrain,
whether willingly or not, from engaging in the branches monopolized by
their male rivals.[45]
The advantages of cheap production do not often fall to this class of
laboring women. Says Mrs. Campbell, “The emancipation of women is well
under way, when all underwear can be bought more cheaply than it is
possible to make it up at home, and simple suits of very good material
make it hardly more difficult for women to clothe herself without
thought or worry, than it has long been for men. This is the word heard
at a woman’s club not long ago, and reinforced within a week by two
well-known journals edited in the interests of women at large.”
The emancipation on the one side has meant no corresponding
emancipation for the other; and as one woman selects, well pleased,
garment after garment, daintily tucked and trimmed and finished beyond
any capacity of home sewing, marveling a little that a few dollars can
give such lavish return, there arises, from narrow attic and dark, foul
basement, and crowded factory, the cry of the women whose life blood is
on these garments. Through burning scorching days of summer; through
marrow-piercing cold of winter, in hunger and rags with white faced
children at their knees, crying for more bread, or, silent from long
weakness, looking with blank eyes at the flying needle, these women
toil on, twelve, fourteen, sixteen hours even, before the fixed task is
done.[46]
After a careful study of one of the thickly populated working
districts in New York, Mrs. More says, “As the children grow older
and require less of her care at home, the mother takes in sewing or
goes out washing, secures a janitor’s place, cleans offices, and
does whatever she can to increase the weekly income. She feels this
to be her duty, and often it is necessary, but frequently it has a
disastrous effect on the ambition of the husband. As soon as he sees
that the wife can help support the family, his interest and sense
of responsibility are likely to lessen, and he works irregularly or
spends more on himself. There are, of course, many families in which
this united income is needed, when the man’s illness or incapacity
makes it imperative for the wife to help. Sometimes it is due to
thrift and ambition to save money for the future, or for some definite
purpose. Charitable societies generally deplore the prevalence of this
custom because of its economic and moral results on the head of the
family.”[47]
The British Board of Trade, in its report on French towns, says: “With
regard to the wives’ earnings it may be observed that their importance
is not limited to the towns in which textile industries predominate.
In 51 per cent of all the families from which budgets were obtained
the wives were contributors; the proportion was highest at Rome (a
town largely dependent on the cotton trade,) where it was no less than
82 per cent.” Of Germany the report says, “A large proportion of the
home workers are married women, who in this way seek to supplement the
earnings of the chief bread-winner, and are only able to devote odd
hours to the work. How largely the custom of home working is a result
of poverty may be concluded from a statement made in a memorial lately
addressed to the Berlin Tramway Company by its employees. The tramway
employee is unfortunately unable to dispense with the earnings of his
wife, even in normal domestic conditions, if he would maintain his
family properly. The wife has really no choice in the matter. So, too,
of 2,051 municipal employees interrogated on the subject in 1905. 416
or 20.2 per cent replied that their wives worked for money, 170 at
charring, 161 as home workers, and 17 in factories, and 68 in other
ways.”[48]
In spite of their economic independence the status of the women among
the working poor is lower than the status of the women of any other
social class. They suffer more from oppression, and their position is
little higher than that of the women of the Australia aborigines among
whom man has the power of life and death over his wife and children.
It is true, the state restricts the power of the husband over the wife
and secures for her certain personal rights the Australian savages
are ignorant of, but she has a new master in modern industry which
virtually exercises over her a power of life and death untempered by
sympathy and mutual interest. Degeneracy and elimination such as was
never known in primitive society would result if the more fortunately
situated economic classes did not interfere.
FOOTNOTES:
[35] Dawson, _German Life in Town and Country_, p. 50.
[36] Cheyney, _Industrial and Social History of England_, p. 287.
[37] Orne, Eliza, _Conditions of Women in the Nail, Chain and Bolt
Making Industries_.
[38] _Ibid_, p. 574.
[39] Gohre, _Three Months in a Workshop_, p. 190.
[40] _Charities and Commons_, Feb. 6, 1909, p. 916.
[41] Rowntree, _Poverty, A Study of Town Life_, pp. 39, 54.
[42] Cadbury, Edward; Matheson, M. Cecile; Shann, George. _Women’s Work
and Wages._
[43] Booth, _Life and Labor of The People_, IV, p. 801.
[44] Booth, _Labour and Life of the People_, IV, p. 295.
[45] Webb, _Problems In Modern Industry_, p. 75.
[46] Campbell, _Prisoners of Poverty_, pp. 30-1.
[47] More, _Wage Earners’ Budgets_, pp. 83, 87.
[48] _Cost of Living in French Towns_, 1909, p. XVI; _Cost of Living in
German Towns_, 1908, p. 11.
CHAPTER IV
THE EFFECTS OF INDUSTRIAL CHANGES UPON THE HOMES OF THE MIDDLE-CLASS
WORKERS
The middle class worker is a worker whose remuneration is sufficient to
allow him to maintain a plane of living commonly considered adequate
for his physical well being.
His employment is not necessarily in the skilled trades, for many of
the skilled workers are kept on a margin of bare subsistence, while
many unskilled workers are able to enjoy a considerable degree of
comfort. So much depends upon the economic conditions of a country or
section, and the demand for and supply of labor that a classification
according to occupation or remuneration would not be feasible.
In congested cities where the cost of living is high, employment
uncertain, and labor plentiful, the unskilled worker frequently finds
it impossible to live and enjoy the simple comforts and decencies of
life. On the other hand, in newly settled communities, where labor
is scarce and opportunities many, the unskilled worker is often able
to accumulate property and to give his children advantages usually
confined to the prosperous business class in a large city.
Hence, in discussing the middle class worker, he will be considered as
a man having sufficient pay, irrespective of his occupation, or the
occupation of his family to enjoy a plane of living generally accepted
as necessary to a normal and healthful life.
Peoples that make any progress constantly press toward an ideal.
This ideal is the standard--so to speak--accepted by all classes to
a certain extent, reflected in the schools, churches and all other
social institutions. It is a part of the spirit of the age. To judge
a class by any other standard, to expect its members to embrace the
ideals held by their ancestors because we think it more in keeping
with their financial circumstances, is as unfair as it is illogical.
It is expecting of others what we feel no one has a right to expect of
us. To share in the benefits of our social institutions and the advance
they make from year to year is a right claimed by all irrespective
of class, that a woman no longer “contented with bare floors and tin
dishes,” or even ingrain carpets and porcelain, or a blue calico gown
and white apron for an afternoon social function, does not signify she
is losing her sense of the fitness of things but that she no longer
lives in an age of bare floors and tin dishes and that she too has
through imitation shared in the rise of material standards. When a
class departs from a seemingly sensible course, it is more often a
joining of the procession of imitators and if the example is not worthy
of imitation, the fault is further up the line.
The middle class worker has as his goal the social class just ahead of
him. He is following a standard he did not establish, but he must go
with the current or drift back. One cannot long stand still.
In the last chapter was discussed a class of workers who have little,
if any, freedom in the choice of a plane of living. Their poverty is so
great that outside of the civilizing forces afforded by the community,
gratis to all, they merely exist. We now come to a class of workers
who possess those qualities of character which determine the type of
civilization of a country and from whom have come the progressive
movements tending toward the general uplift of humanity. They are the
real fighters. They stand on a side hill and fight both ways--fight
to keep from being shoved down the hill and to gain an inch on the
upgrade. They are neither exclusively the victims nor the beneficiaries
of the economic regime.
The home of the middle-class worker contains all the elements of
change characteristic of the age, and the success or failure of the
breadwinner in the economic struggle determines the degree to which
these elements are developed. To apply a test to their respective
values would be unfair unless the same test were applied to the
families of the higher social classes. What will be attempted will
be to trace the influence of economic changes upon the home and the
resulting change in the status of the wife.
Whatever struggle the workingman engages in involves the destiny of
those dependent upon him for subsistence. His success determines
their plane of living, and their interests are identical with his. In
no other class do we see the home so complete an economic unit. The
individual is often completely lost sight of in deference to the family
interests. There is a recognized division of work between the husband
and wife. The common object is the economic well-being of the family,
and although there may not be sufficient economic liberty to enable
them to choose the work most congenial, they gain by the increased
strength brought about by their close co-operation.
The husband offers his services for money; the wife remains at home
administering to the needs of the family. Her work is of a productive
nature satisfying the primary needs of those about her. She prepares
the food for consumption, makes the clothing for the family and engages
in numberless pursuits--all of which have real economic value to
the family. This is the prevailing ideal of the middle class family
of today, but like many other social ideals is found only under the
most favorable conditions. We find it in many rural communities, or
communities half urban and half rural. Much depends upon the extent to
which manufacturing is carried on in the vicinity, the facilities for
transportation and the price of the commodities brought into the home
as substitutes for the wife’s handiwork.
In countries where labor is cheaper than the use of machinery, the
home has retained its function as a center of production. Under such
circumstances life is simple and wants necessarily few. In some
communities women still do all the spinning and weaving, the making
of the clothing, and the preparation of all foods for consumption.
This type of family especially when it owns the ground it occupies,
represents a self-sufficing economic unit, such as was characteristic
of the period of domestic industry before the era of machinery.
In the early colonial days of the United States many homes represented
the best of European civilization in their culture and ideals.
But economically they represented an earlier industrial stage.
Specialization and co-operation were not practiced, and all the
hardships were felt that characterized a domestic system of industry. A
farmer said in 1787 “At this time my farm gave me and my whole family
a good living on the produce of it, and left me one year with another
one hundred and fifty silver dollars, for I never spent more than ten
dollars a year which was for salt, nails, and the like. Nothing to eat
or wear was bought, as my farm provided all.”[49]
Undoubtedly the duties of the farmer’s wife differed little from those
of the German woman in the 18th century whose husband lauded her in
the following words. “Our cheese and butter, apples, pears, and plums,
fresh or dry, were all of her own preparation.... Her pickles (fruit
preserved in vinegar) excelled anything I ever ate, and I do not know
how she could make the vinegar so incomparable. Every year she made
bitter drops for the stomach. She prepared her elderberry wine herself,
and better peppermint than hers was found in no convent. During all
our married life no one brought a penny-worth of medicine from the
apothecary”....[50]
The introduction of the factory product into the home was a slow
process, and was stubbornly resisted. If it were left to choice we
would still be clinging to the home-made article with a tenacity
more creditable to our conservatism than our judgment. Fortunately,
necessity forces men to change their habits. At present many of the
occupations followed by our grandmothers have left the home for all
time, and we have become reconciled to the change.
Whatever changes have taken place in the home are reflections of
changes taking place outside the home. When war ceased to be the
occupation of all men a large amount of productive energy was released
and woman’s sphere of activities became more limited. She was probably
just as busy as when the field work fell to her lot, and her work was
equally productive. What really took place was the gratification of a
wider circle of wants. When the field had its quota of workers, there
was a surplus of male labor to be applied to the indoor work. As we
have seen in an earlier chapter, men again invaded woman’s field of
work and assumed industrial occupations formerly associated with the
fireside. It was not long before there was a marked change in the
industrial unit, but in spite of the fact that men performed a great
deal of indoor work when the home was a diminutive factory, the family
group lost none of its compactness. Practically all the needs of the
family were supplied by its own individual workers.
Soon man learned the advantage of the division of labor. He gave
certain portions of his work to be done by his neighbor, and this
portion tended to constantly increase. It was not long before he had
but one occupation and it alone did not produce a finished product. It
still had to be passed on to another worker before it was ready for
consumption. This division of labor necessitated a medium of exchange.
He received money for the large supply of goods he produced over and
above his family needs, and with this money he purchased those articles
which he and his family formerly produced on their own plot of ground
and under their own roof.
How about woman’s work? Instead of producing more of a kind, as the men
did, she produced the same amount, and the leisure falling to her lot
by virtue of certain industries being taken out of the home was applied
to new forms of production. She was just as busy as ever. There arose a
greater variety of wants and it was for her to satisfy them.
The process might have gone on from generation to generation with no
marked change except a progressive one. The wife might continue to work
in the home, and as her productive employments departed to the factory
she might substitute others. Wants of a higher nature would demand her
constantly increasing time. But what did happen was that the factory
constantly made inroads upon the work of the home while the money
income of the family remained unaffected.
The income of the family did not tend to increase in the same
proportion as the cost of maintaining the accustomed plane of
living. This forced men into combination for self protection, these
combinations taking the form of trade-unions.
The women who followed their work into the factory were the least
fortunate. It was only where the men had lost their footing in the
economic struggle that the women offered their services outside of
the home for a wage. They were the least efficient workers, and least
able to protect themselves from a ruthless exploitation. The women
who remained at home were the more fortunate in their matrimonial
relations, for their husbands were still able to provide for their
families, and the family social group was not disturbed. The women
continued to can their fruit and to make their garments. The home was
not less a home than under the old domestic system of industry but
more a home, for the number and variety of wants had increased and the
standard of living had been raised.
Thus we see that the industrial evolution has had one of two effects
upon the homes of the working class. It has forced thousands of women
and children into the factories, many of whom make up the ranks of the
“submerged tenth” or the population in a “slum” district. They were
economically the weakest, hence were easy victims of a _laissez faire_
economic regime. Their homes spelled retrogression in the evolution of
the race, for they constituted the most unfit type in the industrial
evolution.
Those who were not victims of the economic regime benefited, at least
in some measure, by the decreased cost of production. The wives of the
men who were able, either alone or through trade association, to hold
their own in the economic struggle gradually ceased to be drudges.
Every time the factory invaded the home to deprive it of one more
of its industries, the wife either was forced to follow her work,
or gained an increased amount of leisure to be applied in her home
as she saw fit. Upon each encroachment of the factory upon the home
there followed a weeding-out process and a few more women became wage
earners. This process has gone on from decade to decade, and excepting
in a few individual cases, women have been helpless in determining
their fate. Excepting where they went to the factory they did not
affect the economic situation of the time. They adapted themselves
to circumstances as best they could, and had no other conception of
the economic situation than that the money income of the family had
increased or decreased. At only one period in their lives did they and
their parents realize they had a voice in their economic destiny, and
that was when they chose their life companions. They appreciated the
importance of a competent bread-winner. For this reason man’s economic
status has always been important in winning a bride. Indeed many sins
of his past have been forgiven because he was able “to make her a good
living.”
In the countries of Europe where the evolution of industry has run
its full painful course from the beginning, the middle class workers
are losing ground. Their numbers have relatively decreased, and as a
class they are protesting loudly through their organizations against
conditions that make the old ideal of the family well nigh impossible.
Many of the single men emigrate to countries offering greater
opportunities to working men, thus leaving the young women to win for
themselves a footing in the industrial life outside the home. Neither
men nor women wish to lose their social status by virtue of failure in
the economic struggle, and so they meet the problem separately and on
different continents.
Those countries not yet fully exploited profit by the courage and
individualism of the north European immigrant. The high price of
labor in consequence of its scarcity made possible a plane of living
beyond the dreams of the home folks, and with this higher standard of
consumption has gone invariably a degree of culture, self improvement,
and self confidence which stood them in good stead at a later day. When
the community became thickly settled and the old industrial problems
arose women did not show the same inclination to go to the factory,
or to lower their plane of consumption to meet the decreased income
of the family, but sought the professions as avenues for industrial
employment. They did not lose social caste and there was a real
economic gain. The United States census report of 1900 says “women as
a class are engaging more generally in those occupations which are
supposed to represent a higher grade in the social scale.” Undoubtedly
the next census report will make this still more apparent.[51]
The women of the United States have greater educational opportunities
than the women of any other country, and when these opportunities are
taken advantage of, they show a like inclination with men to desert
those employments which call for the least skill, and pay the smallest
wage. They assert an independence characteristic of the better classes,
and assume they have a right to a social status a little higher than
their income permits.
This is especially true of the married women. If they enjoy an option
between remaining at home or entering the industrial field, they tend
to be more independent as to hours of labor, and the wages they will
accept. Free, in a large measure, from pressing economic necessity,
they are in a better position to dictate terms than the unmarried women
or the men of their class.
And yet these same married women are considered by their employers
as desirable workers. They tend to be steadier than their unmarried
sisters, and show greater concentration in their work. The secretary
of one of the large glove maker’s union said of the factory in which
she was employed. “When a good worker marries, her place is kept open
for her for several weeks so that she can return within a reasonable
time if she so desires. And she nearly always comes.” Not hunger drives
her back into the factory, but a preference for the industry in which
she has acquired a degree of skill over an industry like housework of
which she knows little, and for which she cares less. From a financial
point of view, it is cheaper for her to hire some one to perform the
distasteful household tasks while she takes her place at her husband’s
side in the factory. There is much to be said for the social advantages
of her work. Once in the home she loses her old associations and finds
herself in an environment which offers little entertainment outside of
her romantic dreams. When these vanish she longs for her old companions
and reënters the factory which, to her, spells industrial freedom, and
a fuller life.
Many wives of the middle class workers are still engaged in work
also carried on in factories. The latter have not yet attained that
cheapness of production which makes it a waste of time for the
housewife to compete with them. But the attractive rates offered
by laundries for “plain pieces,” and the bargain counters in the
basements of large department stores produce a sigh of relief and the
remark “women have it easier now days than they used to.” Few see the
relation between this cheapened cost of production and wages, for the
breadwinner in all probability belongs to the skilled trades, and the
small wage brought home by the daughter is considered pure gain.
While the home of the poorest paid worker gives no evidence of luxury
and the wife’s time is employed in satisfying the wants which have
to do with the preparation of food and clothing in their elementary
stages, much of the energy of the home maker of the better paid worker
is applied to maintaining a higher standard of living.
Wants a century ago were comparatively limited, but under the influence
of modern democratic conditions they have increased many fold. They
most often take the form of a greater variety of food and clothing, or
the satisfying of the spiritual, intellectual and artistic desires.
The newspapers, the magazines, the entire business world seem to have
entered into a conspiracy to separate the working man from his small
savings. Business depends largely upon its success in stimulating the
desires of its patrons. Even our educational system makes every effort
to stimulate higher cultural desires, which inevitably call for a
greater expenditure of money.
These wants spread among the masses with great rapidity, and their
gratification depends upon economic resources. The demands are
generally felt first in the home. Many women attempt to satisfy them by
their labor so that there is little danger of idleness on the part of
the homeworker of this class as long as wants of this nature increase
more rapidly than the desire for leisure. If their labor has a money
value in the labor market it becomes a luxury when performed for their
families, which could not afford to pay for these services at a very
low cost. Only where the financial means of the families are sufficient
to do without the help of the women in providing the necessities of
life, can this new standard of life be maintained.
Hand in hand with the expansion of wants must go an increase of
the money income of the family unless the cost of production has
correspondingly cheapened. If not, the family is living beyond its
means. The income of the family must be increased either by increasing
the wages of men or by the wives and mothers entering the industrial
field. Since to lower one’s standard of consumption is to lose one’s
social status, it is considered far better to engage in some reputable
employment outside the home, even though it entails continuous toil
from morning until night.
The difficulty is not always met in the same way. In one community it
may be perfectly proper for a married woman to continue her stenography
after marriage while in another it would entail social ostracism. Often
small economies are practiced in the home where no one is the wiser.
In France “the sitting-room is apt to be shut up all the week in the
interest of the furniture, and only opened on the single afternoon
the lady of the house is supposed to be at home to her friends. Then
in winter, just before the hour of reception, the meagre wood-fire is
set ablaze, and sometimes tea is prepared, along with biscuits far
from fresh. You may be thankful--if tea is to be offered you, a rare
occurence--should the tea be no staler than the biscuits.”[52]
We need not go to France for illustrations, for even in democratic
America expensive table service does not necessarily imply an abundance
of food. Where men’s incomes do not compensate for the decreased
economic value of women’s work in the home, the problem is as pathetic
as the one faced by the aristocracy of Cranford.
“The present relation of incomes to wants may be seen more clearly in
the case of single men and women than in that of families. In the life
of both sexes there is a lengthening period between the beginning of
the working years and the marriage age, where the standards of the
individuals are directly made by their income. Whatever they are they
are carried into marriage; if the first epoch is one of advance, the
second is likely to be also.”[53]
Of Fall River it is said that “the impulse which makes a married woman
continue to work in the mill may be far less urgent in the economic
sense and simultaneously far more urgent in the social sense.” And
further on they tell us, “These Fall River women are women of a fine
kind. They are highly skilled for women. They are well paid for women.
They are intelligent, attractive, ambitious.”[54]
The woman who still “finds plenty to do at home,” and the woman who has
become part of the industrial world represent two types of homes common
in the middle class. There is still a third. It is the woman who lives
in a modern apartment and can take full advantage of all the industrial
changes that minimize her work. Probably Patten has her in mind when he
says “Once the household industries gave to the staying-home woman a
fair share of the labor, but today they are few, and the ‘home-maker’
suffers under enforced idleness, ungratified longing, and no productive
time-killing.... Heredity has not been making idleness good for women
while it has been making work good for men. Valuable qualities are
developed by toil, and women improve as do men under the discipline of
rewards.”[55]
Thus we have the three types of women in the middle class and there is
a marked difference in the social attitude toward them. The woman who
is busy in her home is looked upon as a vanishing type. The idle woman
is viewed doubtfully. She is thought of as enjoying a leisure which
she, as a member of the middle class is not entitled to. Her idleness
weighs more on the social conscience than the idleness of the woman
of wealth. And justly so; for her past stands for many of the better
things of our civilization which we cherish as ideals, and to see her
become an idler is to witness a growing waste of energy which was
previously utilized to the great advantage of society. She is already
beginning to ask “What can I do?” lest public sentiment should condemn
her for her social parasitism.
It is the middle class woman who goes to work--whether married or
single--who is arousing her sex from lethargy that threatens race
degeneracy. She is taking her place with the men in trying to solve
industrial and social problems. Her home life tends to represent a
newer ideal. She often is not only the companion of her husband in the
home but in the business world as well; a source of economic strength
instead of weakness. What becomes of the children of these families?
This question brings up the subject of “race-suicide” which will be
discussed in another chapter.
FOOTNOTES: