Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/720

 700 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

cover in the last chapter that the author is in sympathy with the views of the Social Democrats. But each page bears the impress of careful and independent thought, and of thorough study of all available material, coupled with very considerable ability in the employment of statistics. This is by far the most impartial and the most far-sighted work on the position of women which has yet seen the light, and presents some new and interesting views to the reader. Its full title is Die Frauenfragc : ihre geschichtliche Entwicklung und wirtschaftliche Seite, and we are told in the preface that it is to be followed by another volume dealing with women's civil and public rights, and discussing the ethical and psychological aspects of the question. The present work is devoted entirely to the economic side. It begins with a sec- tion giving a brief historical summary of women's position prior to the nineteenth century. Frau Braun points out how the older histories, dealing almost exclusively with wars and politics, took naturally very little notice of the work of women, and it was not until the proletariat, freed from slavery and serfdom, and awakened into some measure of self-consciousness, aroused interest in the study of economic history, that any attention at all was devoted to the position of women.

There are two assumptions here, both of which demand justifica- tion. The first is that the study of economic history was first stimu- lated by the growing interest in the demands and discontent of the working classes of Germany. On this point the reviewer cannot speak ; but the assumption certainly seems to hold true of England. The two earliest investigators of English economic history were Arnold Toynbec and Thorold Rogers, and their attention was certainly first directed to the matter by active interest in the condition of the work- ing class of their own days. The second assumption is one which Frau Braun's later chapters show to be only partially justified; namely, that the agitation for an improvement in the position of women is closely connected with the argument for an improvement in the posi- tion of the manual workers.

Beginning with the period of the Afutterrecht, the author shows how at every stage it was economic conditions, the methods of produ- cing and distributing wealth, that decided the position of women. In the period when food was won by hunting, the man had no use for the services of the woman beyond mere sexual enjoyment, nor for the children. The mother therefore possessed full rights over the child; mother and child at this period were the germ of the future civiliza- tion. But with the oncoming of the agricultural period, woman lost