e before the law as an industrial factor. In this way, woman
became increasingly regarded as a social integer rather than as simply
a domestic incident. This was a distinct gain in the end, however
crude the conception at first. The complex questions of woman's social
status are still largely centred about the question of her industrial
place. The insistent claim of the sex that they shall be regarded as
worthy of a part in the world's work projects into the discussion
of the place that she shall occupy many other questions concerning
matters which are immediately involved. It is not too much to say that
all of the issues which arose during the modern period, and together
form the specifications of the platform of "woman's rights," find
their beginning in this first responsible relation of woman to the
industry of the nation. Society is established upon an economic basis,
and so the problem of the duties and responsibilities of woman in a
public way must be centred about industry. It will not do to criticise
the crudeness of the early legislation regarding woman when she first
stepped into the arena of associated industry, and to remain oblivious
to the fact that the question of her industrial status is no more
satisfactorily determined after the lapse of centuries. It is true
that the question during these centuries became greatly involved
at times, as, for instance, at the period of the great industrial
revolution; but, with all the aspects which the question assumes
to-day and the problems which are related to it, the crux of the
matter is the same as it was at the time of the rise of the guilds.

The guild ordinances took the view of woman as an industrial unit,
without regard to her personal relations. If she became a merchant
and associated herself with the guild, she was under the same laws
regarding financial responsibility as was any other member. The fact
that she was a woman, or that she was married and had children, did
not constitute a plea in her behalf for different treatment from that
accorded a guild brother. If a woman-merchant became a debtor, she had
to answer in court as any other merchant, and "an accyon of dette be
mayntend agenst her, to be conceyved aft' the custom of the seid lite,
w[^t] out nemyng her husband in the seid accyon."

The legislation of the period generally recognized the equality of the
sexes in the matter of labor. An ordinance of Edward IV., made in the
borough of Wells, provi