Page:Olive Malmberg Johnson - Woman and the Socialist Movement (1908).djvu/6

 4 Therefore while these our ancestresses were hard workers they were also well nigh economic masters, and, says a writer on the subject: "Woe to the luckless husband or lover who was too indolent or too clumsy to contribute his share to the common stock." We might well imagine what a life the women of the community would lead him, particularly as all the women were related, belonged to the same gens and the man at marriage went into his wife’s household. Sometimes indeed, he was bodily ousted from the house and had to go home to his folks again or hunt for another wife to take him in. Inheritance was then traced in the female line and the children belonged to the mother.

The next division of labor was that between the slave and the freeman. As man learned to any great extent to till the soil and domesticate the animals, he invented a new means of production—the slave. Instead of killing and eating, or otherwise disposing of the conquered enemy he was set to work to produce the necessities of life for the conqueror. The conqueror became the master; the slave, a mere tool and instrument of production, an animal of drudgery at best.

With the growth of slavery the tribes became powerful, they developed into nations and became attached to the land. These existed now a division in society between the slave and the freeman. There also soon arose another, the difference between the rich and the poor freeman. Some were able to get more slaves, more land, more animals, more precious metals, etc., than the others, and therefore acquired greater economic power. These new forms of wealth were man's wealth. They developed within man's specific domain of acquiring food. With them, therefore, man gained economic affluence and power.

The possessions of woman on the other hand sank into insignificance. The implements for her work remained sim-