438 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



pursuing wild animals, it is clear that during the child-bearing period 

 their ability to do either of these things is so far interfered with, both 

 by pregnancy and by the suckling of infants, that they are practically 

 excluded from them. Though the Dahomans, with their army of 

 amazons, show us that women may be warriors, yet the instance 

 proves that women can become warriors only by being practically un- 

 sexed ; for, nominally wives of the king, they are celibate, and any 

 unchastity is fatal. But omitting those activities for which women 

 are, during large parts of their lives, physically incapacitated, or into 

 which they cannot enter in considerable numbers without fatally 

 diminishing population, we cannot define the division of labor between 

 the sexes, further than by saying that, before civilization begins, the 

 stronger sex forces the weaker to do all the drudgery ; and that along 

 with social advance the apportionment, somewhat mitigated in char- 

 acter, becomes variously specialized under varying conditions. 



As bearing on the causes of the mitigation, jjresently to be dealt 

 with, we may here note that women are better treated where circum- 

 stances lead to likeness of occupations between the sexes. Schoolcraft 

 remarks of the Chippewayans that " they are not remarkable for their 

 activity as hunters, which is owing to the ease with which they snare 

 deer and spear fish, and these occupations are not beyond the strength 

 of their old men, women, and boys;" and then he also says that 

 " though the women are as much in the power of the men as other 

 articles of their property, they are always consulted, and possess a 

 very considerable influence in the trafiic with Europeans, and other 

 important concerns." We read, too, in Lewis and Clarke, that " among 

 the Clatsops and Chinnooks, who live upon fish and roots, which the 

 women are equally expert with the men in procuring, the former have 

 a rank and influence very rarely found among Indians. The females 

 are permitted to speak freely before the men, to whom, indeed, they 

 sometimes address themselves in a tone of authority." Then, again, 

 Bancroft tells us that "in the province of Cueba women accompany 

 the men, fighting by their side and sometimes even leading the van ; " 

 and of this same people he also quotes Wafer as saying that " their 

 husbands are very kind and loving to them. I never knew an Indian 

 to beat his wife, or give her any hard words," A kindred meaning ap- 

 pears traceable in a fact supplied by the Dahomans, among whom, 

 sanguinary and utterly unfeeling as they are, the participation of 

 women with men in war goes along with a social status much higher 

 than usual ; for Burton tells us that in Dahomey " the woman is offi- 

 cially superior, but under other conditions she still suffers from male 

 arrogance." 



A probable farther cause of improvement in the treatment of 

 women may here be noted : I refer to the obtaining of wives by ser- 

 vices rendered, instead of by property paid. The practice which He- 

 brew tradition acquaints us wuth in the case of Jacob, proves to be a 



