Page:The Rise of American Civilization (Volume 1).djvu/39

 defiance of local ordinances. In those days the term spinster was not reserved for maidens of uncertain age, but was merely the feminine of spinner—just as webster was the feminine of webber. In fact the textile trade became so attractive to women that they crowded into it from the fields and kitchens, leading Defoe to complain at the opening of the eighteenth century that "wenches wont go to service at 12 pence a week when they can get 7 shillings or 8 shillings a week at spinning," revealing in his lament the existence even then of a servant problem for the English middle classes.

Especially important for colonization were the skill and strength of women in agriculture. Old treatises on farming and schedules of wages fixed by justices of the peace tell impressive stories of their toiling in the fields, raking hay, driving wagons, stowing hay away in mows, guarding flocks in pastures, receiving meager wages—less than the men in those distant days before the demand for equal pay for equal work. For shearing sheep and pulling peas, women earned sixpence a day, against eight for their male competitors. Special wages were paid to women servants "that taketh charge of brewing, baking, ketching, milk house, or malting." Those that helped to thatch roofs were not so favored: "She that draweth thatch hath 3d. a day; and she that serveth the thatcher 4d. a day because she also is to temper the morter and carry it to the top of the house"—runs the entry in one of the books on rural economy. With good reason could a traveler in old England write that "the men and the women themselves toiled like their horses." When, therefore, the various companies and proprietors engaged in colonizing America offered to married men double the quantity of land tendered to single men and made grants to maids as well as bachelors, they knew how valuable were the labors of English women in every branch of husbandry. No doubt the migration of families was determined by domestic council, for the most part, and after the momentous step was taken, the women