Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/524

 504 I HE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

(4) the inefficient primitive industry yields no such disposable surplus of accumulated goods as would be worth fighting for, or would tempt an intruder, and therefore there is little provoca- tion to warlike prowess.

With the growth of industry comes the possibility of a predatory life ; and if the groups of savages crowd one another in the struggle for subsistence, there is a provocation to hos- tilities, and a predatory habit of life ensues. There is a conse- quent growth of a predatory culture, which may for the present purpose be treated as the beginning of the barbarian culture. This predatory culture shows itself in a growth of suitable institu- tions. The group divides itself conventionally into a fighting and a peace-keeping class, with a corresponding division of labor. Fighting, together with other work that involves a seri- ous element of exploit, becomes the employment of the able- bodied men ; the uneventful everyday work of the group falls to the women and the infirm.

In such a community the standards of merit and propriety rest on an invidious distinction between those who are capable fighters and those who are not. Infirmity, that is to say incapacity for exploit, is looked down upon. One of the early consequences of this deprecation of infirmity is a tabu on women and on women's employments. In the apprehension of the archaic, animistic barbarian, infirmity is infectious. The infec- tion may work its mischievous effect both by sympathetic influ- ence and by transfusion. Therefore it is well for the able-bodied man who is mindful of his virility to shun all undue contact and conversation with the weaker sex and to avoid all contamination with the employments that are characteristic of the sex. £ven the habitual food of women should not be eaten by men, lest their force be thereby impaired.^The injunction against womanly employments and foods and against intercourse with women applies with especial rigor during the season of preparation for any work of manly exploit, such as a great hunt or a warlike raid, or induction into some manly dignity or society or mys- tery. Illustrations of this seasonal tabu abound in the early nistory of all peoples that have had a warlike or barbarian past.