F.— ECONOMICS, 119 



not acquiesce in the present arrangements (cp. Report on Women in 

 Industry, Cuid. KJS; Minority Report by Mrs. Sidney Webb, sections 

 I'J and G). Bui these considcnitrions lie outside pure economics, and 

 must be postponed to our sequel. 



16. II. The presumption in favour of free competition and the 

 methods of putting it in practice require to be reconsidered when we 

 restore the abstracted circumstances of family life. We now encounter 

 the dominant fact that men very generally out of their earnings support 

 a wife and family. ' It is normal for men to marry and to have to 

 support families. ... It is not normal for women to have to support 

 dependants ' (Seebohm Rowntree, * Human Needs,' p. 115). These 

 words express a very general beUef and sentiment. It is a norm 

 accepted throughout the civilised world. It is embodied in the 

 Australian determination of minimum wage, one of which, by Judge 

 Higgins, has been above cited (12). Another Australian Judge rules : 

 ' The man, and not the woman, is typically the breadwinner of the 

 family' ('South Australian Industrial Repoii;s, ' vol. ii., 1918-19). 

 Justice Jetliro Brown grounds an award on ' the traditional social 

 structure which imposes on men the duty of maintaining the house- 

 hold.' So Professor Taussig, ' For a man wages must normally be 

 enough to enable a family to be supported and reared. The great 

 majority of working women are not in this case ' (' Principles,' ch. 47, 

 s. 9, vol. ii., p. 144). It cannot be supposed that these authoritative 

 expressions of belief have no correspondence with reality. Indeed, the 

 wiser and more moderate advocates of equal pay for women admit it 

 to be ' unlikely that any large proportion of married women will aim 

 at earning their own living as the norm or standard ' (Miss B. L. 

 Hutchins, ' Conflicting Ideals,' p. 63). Few would agree with the 

 authoi'ess of ' A Sane ' (.sic) ' Feminism ' that ' domestic morality and 

 feminine dignity make it essential for the married wo^man oi to-morrow to 

 be independent of her husband's income, and therefore normally depen- 

 dent on some occupation O'utside the home, ... a work to be continued 

 throughout married life, with occasional lapses incidental to child-bear- 

 ing ' (pp. Ill, 113). Even Mill admits that ' in an otherwise just state 

 of things it is not ... a desirable custom that the wife should con- 

 tribute by her labour to the income of the family . . . the actual exercise 

 in a habitual or systematic manner of outdoor occupations, or such as 

 cannot be carried on at home, would ... be practically interdicted to 

 the greater number of married women ' (' Subjection of Women,' 

 pp. 88-89). Does it not follow that the husband must support the 

 family, so far as he is not assisted by contributions from adult children 

 or the occasional — not ' systematic ' — work of the wiie? 



17. It has been sought to evade this stubborn fact by the contention 

 that the occupied single woman is responsible for the suppoit of as 

 many dependants as the man. On the strength of an investigation con- 

 ducted by the Fabian Research Committee it is maintained that ' two- 

 thii'ds of the wage-earning women are not only entirely self-supporting, 

 but have others to maintain besides themselves.' But grave doubts 

 are thrown upon these figures by the more elaborate investigation which 

 Mr. Seebohm Rowntree has i-ecently conducted. He finds from an 



