248 



THE EVOLUTION OF SEX. 



past of the race is thus depicted in the most sinister colors, and the 

 whole view is supposed to be confirmed by appeal to the practice of 

 the most degenerate races, and this again as described with the scanty- 

 sympathy or impartiality of the average white traveler, missionary, or 

 settler. 



As we have already said, we can not attempt a full discussion of 

 the question, but our book would be left, as biological books for the 

 most part are, without point, and its essential thesis useless, if we did 

 not, in conclusion, seek to call attention to the fundamental facts of 

 organic difference, say rather divergent lines of differentiation, under- 

 lying the whole problem of the sexes. We shall only suggest, as 

 the best argument for the adoption of our standpoint, the way in 

 which it becomes possible relatively to affiliate the most varied stand- 

 points. We shall not so readily abuse the poor savage, who lies idle 

 in the sun for days after his return from the hunting, while his heavy- 

 laden wife toils and moils without complaint or cease; but bearing 

 in view the extreme bursts of exertion which such a life of incessant 

 struggle with nature and his fellows for food and for life involves upon 

 him, and the consequent necessity of correspondingly utilizing every 

 opportunity of repose to recruit and eke out the short aud precarious 

 life so indispensible to wife and weans, we shall see that this crude 

 domestic economy is the best, the most moral, and the most kindly, 

 attainable under the circumstances. Again, the traveler from town, 

 who thinks the agricultural laborer a greedy brute for eating the 

 morsel of bacon and leaving his wife and children only the bread, 

 does not see that by acting otherwise the total ration would soon be 

 still further lowered, by diminished earnings, loss of employment, or 

 loss of health. 



The actual relations of fisherman and fishwife, of the smallest farmer 

 and his wife, seem to us to give a truer as well as a healthier picture of 

 antique industrial society than those we find in current literature; and 

 if we admit that such life is deficient in refinement (although, on all 

 deeper grounds, from religion to ballad poetry, we might even largely 

 dispute this), it has still much to teach in respect of simplicity and 

 health. 



The old view of the subjection of women was not, in fact, so much 

 of tyranny <is it seemed, but roughly tended to express the average 

 division of labor; of course hardships were frequent, but these have 

 been exaggerated. The absolute ratification of this by law and religion 

 was merely of a piece with the whole order of belief and practice, in 

 which men crushed themselves still more than their mates. Being 

 absolute, however, such theories had to be overthrown, and the appli- 

 cation of the idea of equality, which had done such good service in 



