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

by Theresa Schmid McMahon

Before the era of machine industry, men and women married early as an economic advantage to both, establishing a family group with a recognized division of labor and a concentration of authority. By the concentration of authority is not meant that women were submissive and docile in the household (although such was the prevailing ideal of women at that time) for such submission depends upon the characteristics of the individuals concerned, but male control of matters establishing the relation of the family to the outside world. The passivity of one parent was essential in a relation considering the family all important and the individual of little consequence.

When the occupations of men were of such a nature as to cause a large death-rate among them, the number of unmarried women must have been necessarily large. These attached themselves to the households of relatives, and were in no sense a burden, for as long as the household was an industrial center their services were acceptable, and their economic relations to the household somewhat similiar to those of the married women.

Those women who did not become part of a household took refuge in religious institutions. In a society where religious feeling is strong, those of the most aesthetic type and susceptible to the incongruities of life would be the first to separate themselves from earthly ties and attempt to live up to their convictions and ideals. Hence many women as well as men, who might have had marked influence in the molding of social institutions devoted themselves to a spiritual and secluded life leaving no offspring to whom they might transmit those characteristics making them superior to the type most adaptable to the prevailing customs of the time.[110] Thus we find religious institutions a check to the propagation of a feminine type which has played an important role in later history.

With the decline of the monastic system, and the breaking up of the domestic system of industry, unmarried women were forced to establish relations to the economic world outside the home similar to those of men. If these women had dedicated themselves to a life of celibacy when they entered the industrial field, as they did when they entered the church, history would show them struggling for legal and political rights in the same manner as men. But the possibility of changing habits of life by marriage, freeing them from a serious economic responsibility prevented the growth of a class conscious spirit which would stimulate them to co-operate in bettering their conditions.

We find the family losing ground as an industrial unit with the development of the factory. Men became more conscious of their social relations outside the home, and came to appreciate the advantage and necessity of social compacts. These changed relations growing out of the new industrial life gave rise to a spirit of democracy which emphasized the importance of the individual and his social relations. It was a large factor in developing the political rights of men and later of women.

The eighteenth century witnessed a crusade for political rights. Practically all the serious thinkers of the day were forced to consider the extension to all men of political rights which had up to this time been based on high property qualifications. The great material prosperity of northern Europe was at the expense of the laboring classes who were forced to resist or to succumb to hopeless slavery. It was a class struggle and fought out on those lines. Women took an active part in it and were emphatic in their claims for their husbands, sons, and brothers but the literature of the time does not show a consciousness on the part of working women of an antagonism between their interests and those of men.

On the eve of the French Revolution Condorcet made a demand for the political emancipation of women. “In 1789, at election time, several pamphlets appeared demanding the admission of women to the States General, and protesting against the holding of a national assembly, from which half of the nation was excluded.”[111]

The plea for the political rights of women was made on the ground of the rights of equality, but the right to vote was not thought of as an instrument for self protection in the economic world. On the other hand the struggle on the part of men had a real economic basis. It was economic pressure that goaded them to political struggle whereas with women it was merely a declaration of rights expressing the spirit of democracy of the times. Among its adherents were men and women of superior intelligence, but the masses showed the indifference they usually show to claims of abstract rights.

In England the municipal reform act of 1869 gave women votes in all municipal elections. The act of 1870 gave them votes for school boards. The act of 1888, made them voters for the county council. The act of 1894, which transformed the whole system of local government and vastly extended the system of local representation, abolished in all its departments the qualification of sex.[112]

In 1856, over two million women of Great Britain were forced to earn their living and many of these belonged to the upper classes. Few indeed were the occupations open to them. This was not entirely due to the opposition of men but partly to the inability of women to realize their relations to the industrial world as wage earners. They, as well as the men, in spite of their employment outside of the home, entertained the idea they were not performing their proper function in life, but had failed—perhaps through no fault of their own—to adjust themselves to their proper sphere. So long as the working women held to the ideals of their ancestors they showed little tendency to demand equality between the sexes in the industrial and political world.