Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/36

 feminism, since it is only with the approval and by the consent of the public, of which each inquiring citizen forms a part, that reforms won by women can be retained by them.

To make clear one reason for the grave discontent amongst women it is necessary to go back in thought to the dawn of the world, and to understand the relation which men and women separately bore to that condition of their existence, human labour. It is not a misuse of language to speak of labour as one of the most precious things in the world. By many people it is still regarded as the primal curse placed upon Adam and Eve for their sin. By others it is regarded as a brand of inferiority, and the stupid boast still lingers amongst the foolishly proud that they never worked nor their ancestors for many generations behind them. Labour, to the healthy man and woman, is as vitally necessary as food and drink; yet some there are whose highest ambition it is to be able to try to do without it.

It must, of course, be congenial labour. The man with the brain of a Newton might reasonably curse his labour if condemned to the plough for all his waking hours. The woman with the genius of a Marian Evans might be excused for disliking to wash other people's clothes for a livelihood. Labour