THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT AMONG WOMEN. 165 



cause, while he labors he also becomes the father of children. This 

 deterioration, going on with each generation, at last reaches the 

 point where pauperism becomes a settled condition rather than an 

 occasional and temporary result. 



This monstrous evil, this unconvicted crime, of labor without 

 adequate wages, it is plain to be seen, falls most heavily upon the 

 laboring woman who, least of all, is responsible for it. The inter- 

 ests of industry and the instincts of virtue unite in the condemna- 

 tion of such barbarism. 



This question of family maintenance rests upon an arrangement 

 far below the righteous or unrighteous usages of society. In the 

 nature of things, the duty of maintenance belongs to that parent, 

 be it father or mother, best fitted for the fulfilment of it. Shall 

 the little one of any household in the Kingdom of Christ go less 

 suitabl}^ fed, clothed and educated because the burden of this pro- 

 viding falls upon the mother, whose more brooding care and 

 greafer tenderness more fully symbolize those of the All-Father 

 for the child Humanity? Not always. Nor need the majority- 

 man, upon whose shoulders this burden usually falls, fail of cour- 

 Bge because of this concession. He will hnd the problem most 

 easily solved by the rule of equal compensation. Women do not 

 go into the occupations of men, competing for wages, save from 

 necessity; remaining there the shortest possible time, and finding 

 themselves, when there, at disadvantage of natural and acquired 

 unfitness. Nevertheless, it is true that women, thus thrust out of 

 their own into new and distasteful occupations, often accomplish as 

 much and as good work as men trained to its pursuit. This put- 

 ting of themselves so completely into their work, to secure this 

 result, must be exhausting beyond that of masculine services of 

 the same sort. For this reason, and for other very g:ood reasons, 

 when women do go into the occupations of men for wages, they 

 ought to have at least as much, since in respect of need they have 

 the same — that of having others to support — and, in addition, this: 

 the care of the household, in cooking, sewing, nursing, and the 

 general responsibility of administering the atfairs of the home. 

 This is so much extra burden laid upon the average laboring wom- 

 an beyond that performed by the average laboring man. 



But the great reason, covering all classes and all conditions of 

 each class is this— that ivomen are not able to labor so continuoushj 



