394 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the number of single women of corresponding age that is, of women 

 who have remained single to middle life. 



As a matter of fact, support through marriage can not he co-ex- 

 tensive with the need of support for women. It does not cover the 

 whole period of working-life, and it fails to be a support in a consid- 

 erable proj3ortion of cases. 



It would seem that there must be a fallacy in the view that would 

 make the natural provision for honorable and satisfactory support de- 

 pend upon a relation that does not cover the whole need in any case, 

 and can not be certainly counted upon in any individual case. The 

 same tendency toward complexity of conditions and relations, which 

 makes equality in domestic service a thing of the past rather than of 

 the future, would lead us to anticipate that the number of women 

 workers must increase rather than diminish. In taking methods for 

 improving their condition we must look forward rather than back- 

 ward, to means which are in harmony with influences now at work, 

 rather than to such as would require a return of conditions which have 

 passed away. 



"We believe, therefore, that a careful consideration of the move- 

 ments which have gone on and are going on in social life leads to the 

 following conclusions : 



1. There is no necessary connection between domestic life and do- 

 mestic work. 



2. Domestic life means the united life of the members of a family, 

 and is a constant social element. 



3. Most of the work now done as domestic work is only so done 

 because it has not yet been brought within the grasp of business organi- 

 zation. The range of such work is constantly growing narrower. 



4. Our method of doing it by domestic service is imperfect, because 

 domestic service involves a servile relation that does not exist in non- 

 domestic labor. 



But if all work tends thus irresistibly to become organized into 

 departments of business, the question of the future industrial position 

 of women is settled. They must follow their work under its new 

 forms, or cease to work at all. Extremes meet, and the organization 

 of industry must end by giving back to women what it began by tak- 

 ing from them, a place in the varied work of the world. 



So far from the perfection of domestic life being imperiled by the 

 gradual substitution of non-domestic for domestic labor, many advan- 

 tages would be thereby gained : 



1. It would help to free marriage from any but personal consider- 

 ations. The question as to the capacity of a woman for house-work 

 would become as foreign to that of her desirability as a wife as is 

 now her ability as a tailor. It would be a wife only, not also a do- 

 mestic, that the young man would need to seek. 



