Women and economic evolution: or, The effects of industrial changes upon the status of women

by Theresa Schmid McMahon

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]