Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/24

 semi-civilised tribes to-day for the women of the tribe to keep at home and spend their lives doing hard and menial tasks and bearing children. The men roam abroad and with one another engage in various pursuits of an active sort, and discuss together the questions of interest of their own times. The last remnant of this ancient division of labour is to be found in the half-querulous, wholly resentful suggestion, the favourite retort of the anti-feminist, 'woman's place is the home.' Woman as woman, woman when she is performing the particular duties of her sex is, undoubtedly, in the best and safest place possible when she is at home—always presuming that the home is a home indeed, and that she can afford to be there. But sex duties are only a part of woman's work, only a part, indeed, of some women's work. All the rest of her is her portion in common with men, the priceless part of both of them which distinguishes them from the beast of the field. Small wonder is it that certain theologians in council assembled, debated the question of the existence of a soul in woman, if their blind eyes were fixed upon one attribute and one function of her in the belief that there was the whole woman. The wonder is that in such circumstances the vote, when taken, showed a majority in favour of the soul theory.

For the woman as a human being, and not