eae UNIVERSITY OF “CHICAGO PRESS 
Sex and Society: Studies in the Social Psychology of Sex 
By WILLIAM I. THOMAS, Associate Professor of Sociology 
in the University of Chicago 
300 pages, r2mo, cloth; net $1.50, carriage extra 
[ Zo be issued February | 
‘a volume approaches the question of woman and her position in 
society from a new standpoint. It recognizes that sex is a fundamental 
factor in the origin and development of social institutions and occupational 
activities, and that a number of social forms and forces are of sexual origin. 
After a preliminary paper in which the organic differences of the two sexes 
are analyzed, there follows a series of studies on the relation of sex to social 
feeling and stimulation, and the influence of sex in securing a system of social 
control; the psychology of the maternal system of tribal organization; sex as 
a factor in the differentiation of occupations in early society, and the relation 
of woman to early industry and invention; the relation of sex to the origin of 
morality; the origin of exogamy; the origin and psychology of modesty and 
clothing. 
In the last two papers, on “The Adventitious Character of Woman” and 
“The Mind of Woman and the Lower Races,’ modern woman is interpreted 
from the standpoint of certain conventions and prejudices which emanate 
from the fact of sex, and which have excluded her from full participation in 
the activities of the “white man’s world,” with the result that she develops a 
type of mind and character not representative of the natural traits of her Sex. 
Former treatises on the “(woman question” have dealt in the main in a 
descriptive way with the history of marriage, or at least only with the details 
of the development of the marriage system, and have failed to present a theory 
Which makes clear the significance of the present position of woman in society. 
The volume of Professor Thomas is the first attempt made to estimate the 
Influence of the fact of sex on the origin and development of human society. 
It indicates also the influence of the organic differences between men and 
Women in determining and differentiating social interests and activities, and 
traces by a psychological method the origin of the conditions and conventions 
which have led to the immense difference in the mental, emotional, and occu- 
pational life of men and women which exists at present. 
__ The results presented are a notable contribution, not only to sociological, 
but to educational theory. The anthropological and ethnological materials 
used will be new and of peculiar interest to the general reader, and the book 
will be of particular interest to intelligent women. 
