CHAPTER X: THE STATUS OF WOMEN.

§ 324. Perhaps in no way is the moral progress of mankind more clearly shown, than by contrasting the position of women among savages with their position among the most advanced of the civilized. At the one extreme a treatment of them cruel to the utmost degree bearable; and at the other extreme a treatment which, in some directions, gives them precedence over men.

The only limit to the brutality women are subjected to by men of the lowest races, is their inability to live and propagate under greater. Clearly, ill-usage, under-feeding, and over-working, may be pushed to an extent which, if not immediately fatal to the women, incapacitates them for rearing children enough to maintain the population; and disappearance of the society follows. Both directly and indirectly such excess of harshness disables a tribe from holding its own against other tribes; since, besides greatly augmenting the mortality of children, it causes inadequate nutrition, and therefore imperfect development, of those which survive. But short of this, there is at first no check to the tyranny which the stronger sex exercises over the weaker. Stolen from another tribe, and perhaps stunned by a blow that she may not resist; not simply beaten, but speared about the limbs, when she displeases her savage owner; forced to do all the drudgery and bear all the burdens, while she has to care for and carry about her children; and Edition: current; Page: [726] feeding on what is left after the man has done; the woman’s sufferings are carried as far as consists with survival of herself and her offspring.

It seems not improbable that by its actions and reactions, this treatment makes these relations of the sexes difficult to change; since chronic ill-usage produces physical inferiority, and physical inferiority tends to exclude those feelings which might check ill-usage. Very generally among the lower races, the females are even more unattractive in aspect than the males. It is remarked of the Puttooahs, whose men are diminutive and whose women are still more so, that “the men are far from being handsome, but the palm of ugliness must be awarded to the women. The latter are hard-worked and apparently ill-fed.” Of the inhabitants of the Corea, Gützlaff says—“the females are very ugly, whilst the male sex is one of the best formed of Asia . . . women are treated like beasts of burden.” And for the kindred contrast habitually found, a kindred cause may habitually be assigned: the antithetical cases furnished by such uncivilized peoples as the Kalmucks and Khirghiz, whose women, less hardly used, are better looking, yielding additional evidence.

We must not, however, conclude that this low status of women among the rudest peoples, is caused by a callous selfishness existing in the males and not equally existing in the females. 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 Brooke, or of the horrible deeds which Winwood 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. A savageness common to the two, necessarily works out the results we see under the conditions. Let us look at these results more closely.

§ 325. Certain anomalies may first be noticed. Even Edition: current; Page: [727] among the rudest men, whose ordinary behaviour to their women is of the worst, predominance of women is not unknown. Snow says of the Fuegians that he has “seen one of the oldest women exercising authority over the rest of her people;” and of the Australians Mitchell says that old men and even old women exercise great authority. Then we have the fact that among various peoples who hold their women in degraded positions, there nevertheless occur female rulers; as among the Battas in Sumatra, as in Madagascar, and as in the above-named African kingdom. Possibly this anomaly results from the system of descent in the female line. For though under that system, property and power usually devolve on a sister’s male children; yet as, occasionally, there is only one sister and she has no male children, the elevation of a daughter may sometimes result. Even as I write, I find, on looking into the evidence, a significant example. Describing the Haidahs, Bancroft says:—“Among nearly all of them rank is nominally hereditary, for the most part by the female line. . . . Females often possess the right of chieftainship.”

But leaving exceptional facts, and looking at the average facts, we find these to be just such as the greater strength of men must produce, during stages in which the race has not yet acquired the higher sentiments. Numerous examples already cited, show that at first women are regarded by men simply as property, and continue to be so regarded through several later stages: they are valued as domestic cattle. A Chippewayan chief said to Hearne:—

And this is the conception usual not only among peoples so low as these, but among peoples considerably advanced. To repeat an illustration quoted from Barrow, the woman “is her husband’s ox, as a Kaffir once said to me—she has been Edition: current; Page: [728] bought, he argued, and must therefore labour;” and to the like effect in Shooter’s statement that a Kaffir who kills his wife “can defend himself by saying—‘I have bought her once for all.’ ”

As implied in such a defence, the getting of wives by abduction or by purchase, maintains this relation of the sexes. A woman of a conquered tribe, not killed but brought back alive, is naturally regarded as an absolute possession; as is also one for whom a price has been paid. Commenting on the position of women among the Chibchas, Simon writes—“I think the fact that the Indians treat their wives so badly and like slaves, is to be explained by their having bought them.” Fully to express the truth, however, we must rather say that the state of things, moral and social, implied by the traffic in women, is the original cause; since the will and welfare of a daughter are as much disregarded by the father who sells her as by the husband who buys her. The accounts of these transactions, in whatever society occurring, show this. Sale of his daughter by a Mandam, is “conducted on his part as a mercenary contract entirely, where he stands out for the highest price he can possibly command for her.” Among the ancient Yucatanese, “if a wife had no children, the husband might sell her, unless her father agreed to return the price he had paid.” In East Africa, a girl’s “father demands for her as many cows, cloths, and brass-wire bracelets as the suitor can afford. . . . The husband may sell his wife, or, if she be taken from him by another man, he claims her value, which is ruled by what she would fetch in the slave-market.” Of course where women are exchangeable for oxen or other beasts, they are regarded as equally without personal rights.

The degradation they are subject to during phases of human evolution in which egoism is unchecked by altruism, is, however, most vividly shown by the transfer of a deceased man’s wives to his relatives along with other property. Already, in § 302, sundry examples of this have been given, Edition: current; Page: [729] and many others might be added. Among the Mapuchés “a widow, by the death of her husband, becomes her own mistress, unless he may have left grown-up sons by another wife, in which case she becomes their common concubine, being regarded as a chattel naturally belonging to the heirs of the estate.”

Thus recognizing the truth that as long as women continue to be stolen or bought, their human individualities are ignored, let us observe the division of labour that results between the sexes; determined partly by this unqualified despotism of men and partly by the limitations which certain incapacities of women entail.

§ 326. The slave-class in a primitive society consists of the women; and the earliest division of labour is that which arises between them and their masters. Of course nothing more is to be expected among such low peoples as Tasmanians, Australians, Fuegians, Andamanese, Bushmen. Nor do we find any advance in this respect made by the higher hunting races, such as the Comanches, Chippewas, Dacotahs.

Of the occupations thus divided, the males put upon the females whatever these are not disabled from doing by inadequate strength, or agility, or skill. While the men among the now-extinct Tasmanians added to the food only that furnished by the kangaroos they chased, the women climbed trees for opossums, dug up roots with sticks, groped for shell-fish, dived for oysters, and fished, in addition to looking after their children; and there now exists a kindred apportionment among the Fuegians, Andamanese, Australians. Where the food consists mainly of the greater mammals, the men catch and the women carry. We read of the Chippewayans that “when the men kill any large beast, the women are always sent to bring it to the tent;” of the Comanches, that the women “often accompany their husbands in hunting. He kills the game, they butcher and Edition: current; Page: [730] transport the meat, dress the skins, etc.;” of the Esquimaux, that when the man has “brought his booty to land, he troubles himself no further about it; for it would be a stigma on his character, if he so much as drew a seal out of the water.” Though, in these cases, an excuse made is that the exhaustion caused by the chase is great; yet, when we read that the Esquimaux women, excepting the wood-work, “build the houses and tents, and though they have to carry stones almost heavy enough to break their backs, the men look on with the greatest insensibility, not stirring a finger to assist them,” we cannot accept the excuse as adequate. Further, it is the custom with these low races, nomadic or semi-nomadic in their babits, to give the females the task of transporting the baggage. A Tasmanian woman often had piled on the other burdens she carried when tramping, “sundry spears and waddies not required for present service;” and the like happens with races considerably higher, both semi-agricultural and pastoral. A Damara’s wife “carries his things when he moves from place to place.” When the Tupis migrate, all the household stock is taken to the new abode by the females: “the husband only took his weapons, and the wife . . . is loaded like a mule.” Enumerating their labours among the aborigines of South Brazil, Spix and Martius say the wives “load themselves . . . like beasts of burden;” and Dobrizhoffer writes—“the luggage being all committed to the women, the Abipones travel armed with a spear alone, that they may be disengaged to fight or hunt, if occasion require.” Doubtless the reason indicated in the last extract, is a partial defence for this practice, so general with savages when travelling; since, if surprised by ambushed enemies, fatal results would happen were the men not ready to fight on the instant. And possibly knowledge of this may join with the force of custom in making the women themselves uphold the practice, as they do.

On ascending to societies partially or wholly settled, and Edition: current; Page: [731] a little more complex, we begin to find considerable diversities in the divisions of labour between the sexes. Usually the men are the builders, but not always: the women erect the huts among the Bechuanas, Kaffirs, Damaras, as also do the women of the Outanatas, New Guinea; and sometimes it is the task of women to cut down trees, though nearly always this business falls to the men. Anomalous as it seems, we are told of the Coroados, that “the cooking of the dinner, as well as keeping in the fire, is the business of the men;” and the like happens in Samoa: “the duties of cooking devolve on the men”—not excepting the chiefs. Mostly among the uncivilized and semi-civilized, trading is done by the men, but not always. In Java, “the women alone attend the markets and conduct all the business of buying and selling.” So, too, in Angola the women “buy, sell, and do all other things which the men do in other countries, whilst their husbands stay at home, and employ themselves in spinning, weaving cotton, and such like effeminate business.” In ancient Peru there was a like division: men did the spinning and weaving, and women the field-work. Again, in Abyssinia “it is infamy for a man to go to market to buy anything. He cannot carry water or bake bread; but he must wash the clothes belonging to both sexes, and, in this function, the women cannot help him.” Once more, among certain Arabs “the females repudiate needlework entirely, the little they require being performed by their husbands and brothers.”

From a general survey of the facts, multitudinous and heterogeneous, thus briefly indicated, the only definite conclusion appears to be that men monopolize the occupations requiring both strength and agility always available—war and the chase. Leaving undiscussed the relative fitness of women at other times for fighting enemies and pursuing wild animals, it is clear that during the child-bearing period, their ability to do either of these things is so far interfered with, both by pregnancy and by the suckling of infants, Edition: current; Page: [732] that they are practically excluded from them. Though the Dahomans with their army of amazons, show us that women may be warriors; yet the instance proves that women can be warriors only by being practically unsexed; for, nominally wives of the king, they are celibate, and any unchastity is fatal. But omitting those activities for which women are, during large parts of their lives, physically incapacitated, or into which they cannot enter in considerable numbers without fatally diminishing population, we cannot define the division of labour between the sexes, further than by saying that, before civilization begins, the stronger sex forces the weaker to do all the drudgery; and that along with social advance the apportionment, somewhat mitigated in character, becomes variously specialized under varying conditions.

As bearing on the causes of the mitigation, presently to be dealt with, we may here note that women are better treated where circumstances lead to likeness of occupations between the sexes. Schoolcraft says of the Chippewayans that “they are not remarkable for their activity as hunters; which is owing to the ease with which they snare deer and spear fish; and these occupations are not beyond the strength of the old men, women, and boys;” and then he also says that “though the women are as much in the power of the men as other articles of their property, they are always consulted, and possess a very considerable influence in the traffic with Europeans, and other important concerns.” We read, too, that “among the Clatsops and Chinooks, who live upon fish and roots, which the women are equally expert with the men in procuring, the former have a rank and influence very rarely found among Indians. The females are permitted to speak freely before the men, to whom, indeed, they sometimes address themselves in a tone of authority.” Then, again, “in the province of Cueba, women accompany the men, fighting by their side and sometimes even leading the van;” and of this same people Wafer says “their husbands are very kind and loving to them. I never knew an Edition: current; Page: [733] Indian beat his wife, or give her any hard words.” A kindred meaning is traceable in a fact supplied by the Dahomans, among whom, sanguinary and utterly unfeeling as they are, the participation of women with men in war goes along with a social status much higher than usual; for Burton remarks that in Dahomey “the woman is officially superior, but under other conditions she still suffers from male arrogance.”

A probable further cause of improvement in the treatment of women may here be noted. I refer to the obtaining of wives by services rendered, instead of by property paid. The practice which Hebrew tradition acquaints us with in the case of Jacob, proves to be a widely diffused practice. It is general with the Bhils, Gonds, and Hill-tribes of Nepaul; it obtained in Java before Mahometanism was introduced; it was common in ancient Peru and Central America; and among sundry existing American races it still occurs. Obviously, a wife long laboured for is likely to be more valued than one stolen or bought. Obviously, too, the period of service, during which the betrothed girl is looked upon as a future spouse, affords room for the growth of some feeling higher than the merely instinctive—initiates something approaching to the courtship and engagement of civilized peoples. But the facts chiefly to be noted are—first, that this modification, practicable with difficulty among rude predatory tribes, becomes more practicable as there arise established industries affording spheres in which services may be rendered; and, second, that it is the poorer members of the community, occupied in labour and unable to buy their wives, among whom the substitution of service for purchase will most prevail: the implication being that this higher form of marriage into which the industrial class is led, develops along with the industrial type.

And now we are introduced to the general question—What Edition: current; Page: [734] connexion is there between the status of women and the type of social organization?

§ 327. A partial answer was reached when we concluded that there are natural associations between militancy and polygyny and between industrialism and monogamy. For as polygyny implies a low position of women, while monogamy is a pre-requisite to a high position; it follows that decrease of militancy and increase of industrialism, are general concomitants of a rise in their position. This conclusion appears also to be congruous with the fact just observed. The truth that among peoples otherwise inferior, the position of women is relatively good where their occupations are nearly the same as those of men, seems allied to the wider truth that their position becomes good in proportion as warlike activities are replaced by industrial activities; since, when the men fight while the women work, the difference of occupation is greater than when both are engaged in productive labours, however unlike such labours may be in kind. From general reasons for alleging this connexion, let us now pass to special reasons.

As it needed no marshalling of evidence to prove that the chronic militancy characterizing low simple tribes, habitually goes with polygyny; so, it needs no marshalling of evidence to prove that along with this chronic militancy there goes brutal treatment of women. It will suffice if we glance at the converse cases of simple tribes which are exceptional in their industrialism and at the same time exceptional in the higher positions held by women among them. Even the rude Todas, low as are the sexual relations implied by their combined polyandry and polygyny, and little developed as is the industry implied by their semi-settled cow-keeping life, furnish evidence. To the men and boys are left all the harder kinds of work, while the wives “do not even step out of doors to fetch water or wood, which . . . is brought to them by one of their husbands;” and this trait goes along with the Edition: current; Page: [735] trait of peacefulness and entire absence of the militant type of social structure. Striking evidence is furnished by another of the Hill-tribes—the Bodo and Dhimáls. We have seen that among peoples in low stages of culture, these furnish a marked case of non-militancy, absence of the political organization which militancy develops, absence of class-distinctions, and presence of that voluntary exchange of services implied by industrialism; and of them, monogamous as already shown, we read—“The Bodo and Dhimáls use their wives and daughters well; treating them with confidence and kindness. They are free from all out-door work whatever.” Take, again, the Dyaks, who though not without tribal feuds and their consequences, are yet without stable chieftainships and military organization, are predominantly industrial, and have rights of individual property well developed. Though among the varieties of them the customs differ somewhat, yet the general fact is that the heavy out-door work is mainly done by the men, while the women are well treated and have considerable privileges. With their monogamy goes courtship, and the girls choose their mates. St. John says of the Sea Dyaks that “husbands and wives appear to pass their lives very agreeably together;” and Brooke names Mukah as a part of Borneo where the wives close their doors, and will not receive their husbands, unless they procure fish. Then, as a marked case of a simple community having relatively high industrial organization, with elected head, representative council, and the other concomitants of the type, and who are described as “industrious, honest, and peace-loving,” we have the Pueblos, who, with that monogamy which characterizes them, also show us a remarkably high status of women. For among them not simply is there courtship with exercise of choice by girls—not simply do we read that “no girl is forced to marry against her will, however eligible her parents may consider the match;” but sometimes “the usual order of courtship is reversed: when a girl is disposed to marry she does not wait for a young man to propose to her, Edition: current; Page: [736] but selects one to her own liking and consults her father, who visits the parents of the youth and acquaints them with his daughter’s wishes.”

On turning from simple societies to compound societies, we find two adjacent ones in Polynesia exhibiting a strong contrast between their social types as militant and industrial, and an equally strong contrast between the positions they respectively give to women. I refer to Fijians and Samoans. The Fijians show us the militant structure, actions, and sentiments, in extreme forms. Under an unmitigated despotism there are fixed ranks, obedience the most profound, marks of subordination amounting to worship; there is a well organized army with its grades of officers; the lower classes exist only to supply necessaries to the warrior classes, whose sole business is war, merciless in its character and accompanied by cannibalism. And here, along with prevalent polygyny, carried among the chiefs to the extent of from ten to a hundred wives, we find the position of women such that, not only are they, as among the lowest savages, “little better than beasts of burden,” and not only may they be sold at pleasure, but a man may kill and eat his wife if he pleases. Contrariwise, in Samoa the type of the regulating system has become in a considerable degree industrial. There is representative government; chieftains, exercising authority under considerable restraint, are partly elective; the organization of industry is so far developed that there are journeymen and apprentices, payment for labour, and even strikes with a rudimentary trades-unionism. And here, beyond that improvement of women’s status implied by limitation of their labours to the lighter kinds, there is the improvement implied by the fact that “the husband has to provide a dowry, as well as the wife, and the dowry of each must be pretty nearly of equal value,” and by the fact that a couple who have lived together for years, make, at separation, a fair division of the property. Of other compound societies fit for comparison, I may name two in Edition: current; Page: [737] America—the Iroquois and the Araucanians. Though these, alike in degree of composition, were both formed by combination in war against civilized invaders; yet, in their social structures, they differed in the respect that the Araucanians became decidedly militant in their regulative organization, while the Iroquois did not give their regulative organization the militant form; for the governing agencies, general and local, were in the one personal and hereditary and in the other representative. Now though these two peoples were much upon a par in the division of labour between the sexes—the men limiting themselves to war, the chase, and fishing, leaving to the women the labours of the field and the house; yet along with the freer political type of the Iroquois there went a freer domestic type; as shown by the facts that the women had separate proprietary rights, that they took with them the children in cases of separation, and that marriages were arranged by the mothers.

The highest societies, ancient and modern, are many of them rendered in one way or other unfit for comparisons. In some cases the evidence is inadequate; in some cases we know not what the antecedents have been; in some cases the facts have been confused by agglomeration of different societies; and in all cases the co-operating influences have increased in number. Concerning the most ancient ones, of which we know least, we can do no more than say that the traits presented by them are not inconsistent with the view here set forth. The Accadians, who before reaching that height of civilization at which phonetic writing was achieved, must have existed in a settled populous state for a vast period, must have therefore had for a vast period a considerable industrial organization; and it is probable that during such period, being powerful in comparison with wandering tribes around, their social life, little perturbed by enemies, was substantially peaceful. Hence there is no incongruity in the fact that they are shown by their records to have given their women a relatively high status. Wives Edition: current; Page: [738] owned property, and the honouring of mothers was especially enjoined by their laws. Of the Egyptians something similar may be said. Their earliest wall-paintings show us a people far advanced in arts, industry, observances, mode of life. The implication is irresistible that before the stage thus exhibited, there must have been a long era of rising civilization; and their pictorial records prove that they had long led a life largely industrial. So that though the militant type of social structure evolved during the time of their consolidation, and made sacred by their form of religion, continued; yet industrialism had become an important factor, influencing greatly their social arrangements, and diffusing its appropriate sentiments and ideas. Concomitantly the position of women was relatively good. Though polygyny existed it was unusual; matrimonial regulations were strict and divorce difficult; “married couples lived in full community;” women shared in social gatherings as they do in our own societies; in sundry respects they had precedence over men; and, in the words of Ebers, “many other facts might be added to prove the high state of married life.”

Ancient Aryan societies illustrate well the relationship between the domestic régime and the political régime. The despotism of an irresponsible head, which characterizes the militant type of structure, characterized alike the original patriarchal family, the cluster of families having a common ancestor, and the united clusters of families forming the early Aryan community. As Mommsen describes him, the early Roman ruler once in office, stood towards the citizens in the same relation that the father of the family did to wife, children, and slaves. “The regal power had not, and could not have, any external checks imposed upon it by law: the master of the community had no judge of his acts within the community, any more than the house-father had a judge within his household. Death alone terminated his power.” From this first stage, in which the political head was absolute, and absoluteness of the domestic head went to the Edition: current; Page: [739] extent of life-and-death power over his wife, the advance towards a higher status of women was doubtless, as Sir H. Maine contends, largely caused by that disintegration of the family which went along with the progressing union of smaller societies into larger ones effected by conquest. But though successful militancy thus furthered female emancipation, it did so only by thereafter reducing the relative amount of militancy; and the emancipation was really associated with an average increase of industrial structures and activities. As before pointed out, militancy is to be measured not so much by success in war as by the extent to which war occupies the male population. Where all men are warriors and the work is done entirely by women, militancy is the greatest. The introduction of a class of males who, joining in productive labour, lay the basis for an industrial organization, qualifies the militancy. And as fast as the ratio of the free industrial class to the militant class increases, the total activities of the society must be regarded as more industrial and less militant. Otherwise, this truth is made manifest on observing that when many small hostile societies are consolidated by triumph of the strongest, the amount of fighting throughout the area occupied becomes less, though the conflicts now from time to time arising with neighbouring larger aggregates may be on a greater scale. This is clearly seen on comparing the ratio of fighting men to population among the early Romans, with the ratio between the armies of the Empire and the number of people included in the Empire. And there is the further fact that the holding together of these compound and doubly-compound societies eventually formed by conquest, and the efficient co-operation of their parts for military purposes, itself implies an increased development of the industrial organization. Vast armies carrying on operations at the periphery of an extensive territory, imply a large working population, a considerable division of labour, and good appliances for transferring supplies: the sustaining and distributing systems must be well elaborated Edition: current; Page: [740] before great militant structures can be worked. So that this disintegration of the patriarchal family, and consequent emancipation of women, which went along with growth of the Roman Empire, really had for its concomitant a development of the industrial organization.

§ 328. In other ways a like relation of cause and effect is shown us during the progress of European societies since Roman times.

Respecting the status of women in mediæval Europe, Sir Henry Maine says:—

Now leaving open the question whether this conclusion applies beyond those parts of Europe in which institutions of Roman origin were least affected by those of Germanic origin, we may, I think, on contrasting the condition of things before the fall of the Empire and the condition after, infer a connexion between this decline in the status of women and a return to greater militancy. For while Rome dominated over the populations of large areas, there existed throughout them a state of comparative internal peace; whereas its failure to maintain subordination was followed by universal warfare. And then, after that decline in the position of women which accompanied this retrograde increase of militancy, the subsequent improvement in their position went along with aggregation of small feudal governments into larger ones; which had the result that within the consolidated territories the amount of diffused fighting decreased.

Comparisons between the chief civilized nations as now existing, yield verifications. Note, first, the fact, significant of the relation between political despotism and domestic despotism, that, according to Legouvé, the first Napoleon Edition: current; Page: [741] said to the Council of State “un mari doit avoir un empire absolu sur les actions de sa femme;” and sundry provisions of the Code, as interpreted by Pothier, carry out this dictum. Further, note that, according to the Vicomte de Ségur, the position of women in France declined under the Empire; and “it was not only in the higher ranks that this nullity of women existed. . . . The habit of fighting filled men with a kind of pride and asperity which made them often forget even the regard which they owed to weakness.” Passing over less essential contrasts now presented by the leading European peoples, and considering chiefly the status as displayed in the daily lives of the poor rather than the rich, it is manifest that the mass of women have harder lots where militant organization and activity predominate, than they have where there is a predominance of industrial organization and activity. The sequence observed by travellers in Africa, that in proportion as the men are occupied in war more labour falls on the women, is a sequence which both France and Germany show us. Social sustentation has to be achieved in some way; and the more males are drafted off for military service, the more females must be called on to fill their places as workers. Hence the extent to which in Germany women are occupied in rough out-of-door tasks—digging, wheeling, carrying burdens; hence the extent to which in France heavy field-operations are shared in by women. That the English housewife is less a drudge than her German sister, that among shopkeepers in England she is not required to take so large a share in the business as she is among shopkeepers in France, and that in England the out-of-door work done by women is both smaller in quantity and lighter in kind than on the Continent, is clear; as it is clear that this difference is associated with a lessened demand on the male population for purposes of offence and defence. And then there may be added the fact of kindred meaning, that in the United States, where till the late war the degree of militancy had been so small, and the Edition: current; Page: [742] industrial type of social structure and action so predominant, women have reached a higher status than anywhere else.

Evidence furnished by existing Eastern nations supports this view. China, with its long history of wars causing consolidations, dissolutions, re-consolidations, etc., going back more than 2,000 year bc, and continuing during Tatar and Mongol conquests to be militant in its activities, has, notwithstanding industrial growth, retained the militant type of structure; and absolutism in the State has been accompanied by absolutism in the family, qualified in the one as in the other, only by the customs and sentiments which industrialism has fostered: wives are bought; concubinage is common among the rich; widows are sometimes sold as concubines by fathers-in-law; and women join in hard work, sometimes to the extent of being harnessed to the plough; while, nevertheless, this low status is practically raised by a public opinion which checks the harsh treatment legally allowable. Japan, too, after passing through long periods of internal conflict, acquired an organization completely militant, under which political freedom was unknown, and then showed a simultaneous absence of freedom in the household—buying of wives, concubinage, divorce at mere will of the husband, crucifixion or decapitation for wife’s adultery; while, along with the growth of industrialism characterizing the later days of Japan, there went such improvement in the legal status of women that the husband was no longer allowed to take the law into his own hands in case of adultery; and now, though women are occasionally seen using the flail, yet mostly the men “leave their women to the lighter work of the house, and perform themselves the harder out-door labour.”

§ 329. It is of course difficult to generalize phenomena into the production of which enter factors so numerous and involved—character of race, religious beliefs, surviving customs and traditions, degree of culture, etc.; and doubtless Edition: current; Page: [743] the many co-operating causes give rise to incongruities which qualify somewhat the conclusion drawn. But, on summing up, we shall I think see it to be substantially true.

The least entangled evidence is that which most distinctly presents this conclusion to us. Remembering that nearly all simple uncivilized societies, having chronic feuds with their neighbours, are militant in their activities, and that their women are extremely degraded in position, the fact that in the exceptional simple societies which are peaceful and industrial, there is an exceptional elevation of women, almost alone suffices as proof: neither race, nor creed, nor culture, being in these cases an assignable cause.

The connexions which we have seen exist between militancy and polygyny and between industrialism and monogamy, exhibit the same truth under another aspect; since polygyny necessarily implies a low status of women, and monogamy, if it does not necessarily imply a high status, is an essential condition to a high status.

Further, that approximate equalization of the sexes in numbers which results from diminishing militancy and increasing industrialism, conduces to the elevation of women; since, in proportion as the supply of males available for carrying on social sustentation increases, the labour of social sustentation falls less heavily on the females. And it may be added that the societies in which these available males undertake the harder labours, and so, relieving the females from undue physical tax, enable them to produce more and better offspring, will, other things equal, gain in the struggle for existence with societies in which the women are not thus relieved. Whence an average tendency to the spread of societies in which the status of women is improved.

There is the fact, too, that the despotism distinguishing a community organized for war, is essentially connected with despotism in the household; while, conversely, the freedom which characterizes public life in an industrial community, naturally characterizes also the accompanying private life. Edition: current; Page: [744] In the one case compulsory co-operation prevails in both; in the other case voluntary co-operation prevails in both.

By the moral contrast we are shown another face of the same fact. Habitual antagonism with, and destruction of, foes, sears the sympathies; while daily exchange of products and services among citizens, puts no obstacle to increase of fellow-feeling. And the altruism which grows with peaceful co-operation, ameliorates at once the life without the household and the life within the household.*