Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/41

 wealth was, in part, estimated; but the greater the number of the slaves, the less there remained for the man and his wife to do. He, however, devoted himself to public works, either as artist, soldier, or statesman. She had the direction of the work of the household slaves, who, along with their mistress, engaged in the domestic arts of spinning and weaving.

To pass swiftly from the days of Roman glory to the days of the eighteenth century in this country is a leap indeed; but it is to the events of the latter part of the eighteenth century in Great Britain that the inquirer must look most carefully for an understanding of the modern women's movement. Let it be remembered that in all ages there have been free women, free individuals. The queens of the earth have been as great as the kings thereof. Women have ruled with wisdom as abbesses and prioresses. Women had a well-known share in the promotion and guidance of the Reformation. The women of the Renaissance are as famous as the men. Women have been great landed proprietors, governors of schools and colleges, guardians of the poor, statesmen, soldiers, poets, and artists.

Women taught, trained, healed, preached, prophesied, governed, led armies to battle, and did a thousand other things long before the feminist movement made its appearance.