Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/75

 woman in Italy, who would be respected, may not walk along the street without an escort. This is more strictly true, of course, of Southern Italy and Sicily than of the Plains of Lombardy, and it is, of course, a rule more strictly adhered to amongst the upper classes than amongst the lower, where conditions of life and labour make its observance difficult.

The poorer women in Latin countries have a fearfully hard life. The housewife is a drudge who has not only to rear children and do the household work, but must work also in the fields and vineyards by the side of her husband. The woman worker is miserably paid. In France the average wage of the industrial woman is about 1s. 8d. a day. This, comparatively speaking, is not so bad. In Italy the average for the million and a half women labourers is from 8d. to 10d. a day! The straw-plait workers sometimes receive as little as 2d. for twelve hours' work. Small wonder that the intelligent men and women of this land are turning their attention to the problem of organising women workers. There is a woman suffrage movement in Italy, as in France, affiliated to the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, and, on half-a-dozen different occasions, efforts have been made to secure the partial enfranchisement of women.