Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/691

 STUDY OF WOMEN CRIMINALS 675

latter also applies to the unmarried women. A woman who marries lessens her opportunity for successful functioning in the industrial world : if she is secluded in the home, she has the keen edge of the competitive spirit, so essential to success, taken off; if there are children, she is handicapped physically and socially ; there is a growing tendency to discriminate against married women, unless the appeal is made through sympathy rather than through capacity for labor.

Occupation, for many reasons, I consider important. Of the 1,451 at Blackwell's Island, 1,298 were domestics, 125 house- keepers (usually a doubtful occupation and closely related to cour- tesanship). The remainder were distributed among laundresses, laborers, seamstresses, dressmakers, cooks, peddlers, not any of these exceeding eight each and frequently including but one. The reports of other institutions show the same predominance of the domestic class. Besides showing that the domestic class fur- nishes the most criminals, it also shows a low degree of industri- ousness, for many become domestics only when all other shiftless means of securing a livelihood fail. An analysis of the domestic class, as found in cities, may suggest reasons :

This occupation offers the only solution of an economic prob- lem to a large number of foreign women, to those who have no trade, and to those for whom no other field is open. It also includes many who, for mental or physical reasons, cannot earn a livelihood through any other means. This occupation includes those who enter it through choice, necessity, or by reason of limitations in their functioning capacity. The standard of the domestic class is necessarily fixed by the people within the group. The standard may not be that of every domestic within it, but there are common factors in each occupation. In the first place, there is a common grade of education. Some may be able to read and write, some may be illiterate, but there are common opinions, common points of view, and life is interpreted from a similar standpoint. There is a common moral standard. Some may be better, some worse, but the common standard is conditioned by the community of interests, degree of education, and kind of associates. It cannot be seriously questioned but