Page:Marriage as a Trade.djvu/218

 wage of subsistence, but indirectly a profit for her employer, the head of the household—the husband or father.

The displacement of labour which followed the adoption of machinery in crafts and manufactures formerly carried on by hand affected the conditions of women's work just as it affected the work of men. Factories and workshops took the place of home industries; the small trader and the master-craftsman fell under the domination first of the big employer and later of the limited liability company. It was cheaper to produce goods in large quantities by the aid of machinery than in small quantities by hand; so the "little man" who ran his own business with the aid of his own family, being without capital to expend on the purchase of machinery, was apt to find competition too much for him and descend to the position of a wage-earner. For woman the serious fact was that under the new system of collective industry and production on a large scale her particular sphere, the home, ceased to be self-supporting, since its products were under-sold by the products of the factory. Jam and pickles