THE INDUSTRIAL POSITION OF WOMEN. 389 



public opinion is necessary to make work in any special direction pos- 

 sible. 



No one can work independently of others. The training that quali- 

 fies for any pursuit, the necessary relations to others engaged in it, 

 the patronage which pays for it all these are absolutely requisite for 

 its successful prosecution, and these are given or withheld by the force 

 of public opinion. The point at issue in this discussion is, How far 

 can women advantageously take part in the great system of modern 

 industry ? Is the effort they are making to enter occupations from 

 which they have hitherto been excluded justifiable '? Is it the ex- 

 pression of a real need ? Will their success be a benefit or an injury 

 to themselves and to society ? 



Upon this subject there are two views, the holders of which are 

 endeavoring to enlist on their side this final arbiter of the question, 

 the force of public opinion. On one side it is held that women ur- 

 gently need greater facilities for work ; a wider range of occupations, 

 in order to give them greater power of self-support ; that many grave 

 social evils result from this want. It is maintained that the claims 

 accompanying this effort, for equal general and special education, for 

 participation in any kind of work which women feel that they can do, 

 for employment in any occupation for which they have fitted them- 

 selves, are just ; that the movement is in the direction of progress, 

 and that it is the interest of society to support it. On the other side 

 it is urged that woman has her own peculiar sphere, that of domestic 

 life and work. This, well understood and followed, is sufficient for 

 her. She is unfitted by her physical and mental constitution for the 

 occupations carried on by men. Success in the effort she is making in 

 this direction is impossible. The attempt is leading her to do violence 

 to her own organization, to abandon or slight domestic life, and to be- 

 come an inferior competitor instead of a companion to man. Progress 

 is to be sought, not by favoring the effort, but by promoting such an 

 extension of home-life as shall render it unnecessary. 



Both parties are agreed as to the paramount importance of domes- 

 tic life. This being admitted, the objection to non-domestic work for 

 women is based upon the implied supposition that, were domestic life 

 as universal as it should be, the domestic work connected with it would 

 be sufficient to absorb the great body of women-workers. 



To estimate the force of this objection, let us consider what is 

 meant by the terms domestic life and domestic work. There are two 

 elements in the domestic position of women : first, their personal re- 

 lation to the family as wives and mothers ; secondly, the work which 

 necessarily devolves upon them in the fulfillment of the duties of these 

 relations. The first, the personal relation, is a fixed and constant ele- 

 ment. It grows out of the constitution of human beings, and exists 

 under every form of society. It attains its highest expression wherever 

 the union of one man and one woman is the foundation of the family. 



