WOMAN'S PART IN THE WORK 311 



marked off from that of man so clearly that there can be no mistake. 

 That is a bequest apparently from the earliest time recorded in the 

 Bible, when in Eden " delving " was left to Adam and " spinning " 

 to Eve. We may disregard the mythical case of Hercules and 

 Omphale. The late War has brought out magnificently woman's 

 capacity for useful work, and her devoted readiness to buckle, on 

 emergency, even to work not altogether of her province. Pressed 

 by res dura, she has held the stilts of the plough and taken charge of 

 the full management of the farm. But in general, the two provinces 

 of the work that Providence has, undoubtedly with wisdom, marked 

 out severally for the two sexes according to their several natural 

 capabilities is plain, as one would think, to every eye. And with 

 work so apportioned discriminatingly, severally to one sex and the 

 other, an unquestionably healthy tone has been preserved in rural 

 society, rejecting the tumultuary hubbub of the urban streets and 

 the Daphnicce mores of urban " society." When women there, 

 according to the prophet's prediction, " uncover the locks and make 

 bare the leg," it is not for the sake of a " Cloches de Corneville " 

 " Regardez ci, regardez Zd," but, if not precisely to " grind the corn," 

 at any rate to perform some other useful and necessary description 

 of work to which a long gown would be an impedimentum, and 

 which naturally falls to her lot. 



There has been feminine work on farms and in fields before — and 

 one would not wish employment of precisely the same type to occur 

 again. There was drudgery then, when women still worked on the 

 farm under conditions which oftentimes, indeed, made such employ- 

 ment irksome, hurtful to health, and to be considered derogatory, 

 and it had accordingly become distasteful to the feebler sex. Country 

 women did not, however, remain idle for all that. With scanty pay 

 for the men, the few shillings that the woman could earn were 

 needed to keep the chimney smoking, and many a woman found 

 herself compelled to do other jobs than those which seemed the 

 most proper for her for the sake of a few pence — not rarely as an 

 understood, though not specified, condition to the husband keeping 

 his employment. 



However, the War, as observed, has brought about a great change 

 in this as in other things. Field work and farm work were urgently 

 needed, indeed indispensable, and, in the absence of men, farm 

 women were impressed to fill the gaps. And they did the work 

 demanded from them gladly and very creditably — as an earnest, 

 let us hope, of their going on with it. And not farm women only. 

 " Land work " became fashionable among patriotic womanhood, 



