Westermarck (Moral Ideas, vol. i, Ch. XXVI, vol. ii, p. 29) gives numerous references with regard to the considerable proprietary and other privileges of women among savages which tend to be lost at a somewhat higher stage of culture.
The steady rise in the proportion of women among English workers in machine industries began in 1851. There are now, it is estimated, three and a half million women employed in industrial occupations, beside a million and a half domestic servants. (See for details, James Haslam, in a series of papers in the Englishwoman 1909.)
See, e.g., J. A. Hobson, The Evolution of Modern Capitalism, second edition, 1907, Ch. XII, "Women in Modern Industry."
Hobhouse, op. cit., vol. i, p. 228.