Page:Lily Gair Wilkinson - Revolutionary Socialism and the Woman's Movement.djvu/15

 12 a license which they now did everything in their power (frequently with the utmost brutality) to forbid to their wives. This was the origin of that special kind of parasitism to which all women of the privileged class are born, which enables them to maintain their "respectable" position by the sacrifice and degradation of innumerable women of the proletariat. True monogamy has never been generally established in any society; it is everywhere the exception and not the rule. The present form of marriage is legal monogamy supplemented by prostitution—this is the terrible price which is paid for the reputed honourable position of the wives of civilisation.

Thus the subordination of the whole female sex was first brought about by the power of property. It is probable that in some parts of the world, and in some ages, women made a noble resistance, and fought for their freedom; the legends of the Amazons have in this a scientific explanation. But gradually men increased their ascendency, and women being now dependent upon them for subsistence, not merely as men but as owners of property, were more and more forced into a subordinate and submissive position. The warlike feudal times gave an impetus to this development. These were rough days, in which men did not spare each other; but, as laws and legends testify, they spared women even less.

The development of capitalism was a complete revolution in society, and, among other things, it revolutionised the social position of women. The more brutal laws and customs of feudalism were now out of date, but the new order brought with it a new form of slavery. With the introduction of machinery into industry—the Industrial Revolution—the now dominant capitalist class made the discovery that there was a quite other "sphere" for working class women besides that of the home—namely, the factory. They could be employed to work the machines at lower wages than men, and the consequence was that women and children were exploited in the factories with such cruelty that it is obvious the rough brutality of former days had only given place to a still more revolting form of brutality.

The old idea of "Woman's Sphere" being the Home, to which sentimentalists still cling in spite of facts, was in accordance with the conditions of life under individual production. The home, however, meant more for women in those days than the mere rearing of children. They then took an active part in production within their homes—not as wage-slaves, but for the family benefit. The home-tasks of the women before the nineteenth century included spinning,