ii84 LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



increasingly significant part taken by Woman; and this so notably 

 through her initiatives, in the success of neolithic agriculturists 

 over palaeotechnic hunters ; a substantial victory, albeit even to this 

 day so incomplete. Her distinctive functions in the other funda- 

 mental occupations with their regional and other varieties, with her 

 own conditions and status accordingly, reward consideration. Thus 

 what greater change than from the hunter's hard-worked squaw, 

 dragging home the game, skinning it and so on, to the gentle duties 

 of the milkmaid, to the simple milk-food with its light labour of 

 preparation? See, too, her refining withdrawing-room, of the tent, 

 which her wool-work furnished with cushions and carpets, as in 

 time herself with embroidered robes further adorned with jewels. 

 The longevity so remarkable in pastoral life, and especially as com- 

 pared with the brevity of that of hunter-folk, gave time and leisure 

 accordingly for the education of childhood and youth, and was 

 highly favourable to cultural interests up to their highest levels; 

 so that the venerable tales of Hebrew patriarchs and singers — 

 sociological literature of this type at its highest — bear good evidence, 

 though still too scanty, of this heightened status and influence of 

 Woman. The like importance is yet more traceable in agriculture; 

 whence Le Play's broad summary: "Where is the best land?" — 

 "Where there are the best farmers". "And who are the best farmers?" 

 — "Those who have got the best wives!" How so? Because the 

 co-ordinative aptitudes of woman, so long developed through house- 

 keeping, child-care, and family well-being generally — in short, with 

 all-round place, work, and folk interests as compared with man's 

 more specialised labours — find varied and well-organised outlets in 

 and around the farmhouse; for which no better illustration from 

 literature need be sought than the popular northern ballad of JoJm 

 Grumley. Thus it has been well remarked that the too frequent 

 type of village household, in which the woman keeps house and 

 garden, and may even earn outside as well, while her husband 

 poaches and idles by turns, recalls very ancient conditions ; broadly 

 neolithic for woman and palaeolithic for man respectively. Some 

 anthropologists are said to have sometimes observed much the like 

 at the dwelling of our local chief-peasant, commonly termed the 

 squire's hall or laird's castle. But without visiting cottage or castle, 

 even of the most agriculturally minded landowners at their best, 

 this feminine co-ordination of life stands out plain before us in 

 every home. It was we men who built the house and made its 

 furniture ; we cut the wood and dug the coals for the fire ; we got the 

 ore and smelted the iron and made the knives; we howked the clay 

 and made the dishes ; and we brought in the food, from our hunting, 

 tillage, and seafaring; so we naturally feel very important. But who 

 brings use out of all these things by bringing them together, as now, 

 into the civilised meal, with her skill and cleanliness and touch of 



