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.