On the death or desertion of her husband the labouring woman became wholly dependent on the Parish for support. The conduct of the magistrates in fixing maximum wages at a rate which they knew to be below subsistence level seems inexplicable; is in fact inexplicable until it is understood that these wages were never intended to be sufficient for the support of a family. Statute 31 Eliz. and others, show that the whole influence of the Government and administration was directed to prevent the creation of a class of wage-earners. It was an essential feature of Tudor policy to foster the Yeomanry, from whose ranks were recruited the defenders of the realm. Husbandmen were recognised as “the body and stay” of the kingdom.[[172]] They made the best infantry when bred “not in a servile or indigent fashion, but in some free and plentiful manner.”[[173]] If the depopulation of the country-side went on unchecked, there would come to pass “a mere sollitude and vtter desolation to the whole Realme, furnished only with shepe and shepherdes instead of good men; wheareby it might be a prey to oure enymies that first would sett vppon it.”[[174]]
Probably the consideration of whether a family could be fed by a labourer’s wage, seldom entered the Justices’ heads. They wished the family to win its food from a croft and regarded the wages as merely supplementary. The Justices would like to have exterminated wage-earners, who were an undesirable class in the community, and they might have succeeded as the conditions imposed upon the women made the rearing of children almost impossible, had not economic forces constantly recruited the ranks of wage-earners from the class above them.
The demands of capital however for labour already exceeded the supply available from the ranks of husbandmen, and could only be met by the establishment of a class of persons depending wholly on wages. The strangest feature of the situation was the fact that the magistrates who were trying to exterminate wage-earners were often themselves capitalists creating the demand.
The actual proportion of wage-earners in the seventeenth century can only be guessed at. The statement of a contemporary[[175]] that Labourers and Cottagers numbered 2,000,000 persons, out of a population of only 5,000,000 must be regarded as an exaggeration; in any case their distribution was uneven.
Complaints are not infrequently brought before Quarter Sessions from parishes which say they are burdened with so great a charge of poor that they cannot support it; to other parishes the Justices are sometimes driven to issue orders on the lines of a warrant commanding “the Churchwardens of the townes of Screwton and Aynderby to be more diligent in relieving their poore, that the court be not troubled with any further claymours therein.”[[176]]
On the other hand there were many districts where the wage-earner was hardly known and the authorities, like the Tithing men of Fisherton Delamere could report that they “have (thanks to the Almighty God theirfor) no popish recusants; no occasion to levy twelvepence, for none for bear to repair to divine service; no inns or alehouses licensed or unlicensed, no drunken person, no unlawful weights or measures, no neglect of hues and cries, no roads out of repair, no wandering rogues or idle persons, and no inmates of whom they desire information.”[[177]] Or the Constable of Tredington who declared that “the poor are weekly relieved, felons none known. Recusants one Bridget Lyne, the wife of Thos. Lyne. Tobacco none planted. Vagrants Mary How, an Irish woman and her sister were taken and punished according to the Statute and sent away by pass with a guide towards Ireland in the County of Cork.”[[178]] or as in another report “We have no bakers or alehouses within our parish. We cannot find by our searches at night or other time that any rogues or vagabonds are harboured saving Mr. Edward Hall who lodged a poor woman and her daughter. We do not suffer any vagrants which we see begging in our parish but we give them punishment according as we ought.”[[179]]
A review of the whole position of women in Agriculture at this time, shows the existence of Family Industry at its best, and of Capitalism at its worst. The smaller farmers and more prosperous husbandmen led a life of industry and independence in which every capacity of the women, mental, moral and physical had scope for development and in which they could secure the most favourable conditions for their children—while among capitalistic farmers a tendency can already be perceived for the women to withdraw from the management of business and devote themselves to pleasure. At the other end of the scale Capitalism fed the man whom it needed for the production of wealth but made no provision for his children; and the married woman, handicapped by her family ties, when she lost the economic position which enabled her through Family Industry to support herself and her children, became virtually a pauper.
Chapter IV
TEXTILES.
(A) Introductory. Historical importance in women’s economic development—Predominance of women’s labour—Significance in development of Industrialism—Low wages.