200 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



possessions, in pecuniary strength, as it eminently does in the 

 social system of our time, the basis of the award of social consid- 

 eration becomes the visible pecuniary strength of the social unit. 

 The immediate and obvious index of pecuniary strength is the 

 visible ability to spend, to consume unproductively ; and men 

 early learned to put in evidence their ability to spend by display- 

 ing costly goods that afford no return to their owner, either in 

 comfort or in gain. Almost as early did a differentiation set in, 

 whereby it became the function of woman, in a peculiar degree, 

 to exhibit the pecuniary strength of her social unit by means of a 

 conspicuously unproductive consumption of valuable goods. 



Reputability is in the last analysis, and especially in the long 

 run, pretty fairly coincident with the pecuniary strength of the 

 social unit in question. Woman, primarily, originally because 

 she was herself a pecuniary possession, has become in a peculiar 

 way the exponent of the pecuniary strength of her social group ; 

 and with the progress of specialization of functions in the social 

 organism this duty tends to devolve more and more entirely upon 

 the woman. The best, most advanced, most highly developed so- 

 cieties of our time have reached the point in their evolution where 

 it has (ideally) become the great, peculiar, and almost the sole 

 function of woman in the social system to put in evidence her 

 economic unit's ability to pay. That is to say, woman's place (ac- 

 cording to the ideal scheme of our social system) has come to be 

 that of a means of conspicuously unproductive expenditure. 



The admissible evidence of the woman's expensiveness has con- 

 siderable range in respect of form and method, but in substance 

 it is always the same. It may take the form of manners, breeding, 

 and accomplishments that are, piHma facie, impossible to acquire 

 or maintain without such leisure as bespeaks a considerable and 

 relatively long-continued possession of wealth. It may also ex- 

 press itself in a peculiar manner of life, on tlie same grounds and 

 Avith much the same purpose. But the method in vogue always 

 and everywhere, alone or in conjunction with other methods, is 

 that of dress. "Dress," therefore, from the economic point of 

 view, comes pretty near being synonymous with "display of 

 wasteful expenditure." 



The extra portion of butter, or other unguent, with which tha 

 wives of the magnates of the African interior anoint their per- 

 sons, beyond what comfort requires, is a form of this kind of ex- 

 penditure lying on the border between primitive personal embel- 

 lishment and incipientt dress. So also the brass- wire bracelets, 

 anklets, etc., at times aggregating some thirty pounds in weight, 

 worn by the same class of persons, as well as, to a less extent, by 

 the male population of the same countries. So also the pelt of the 

 arctic fur seal, which the women of civilized countries 'j)refer to 



