viduality.

3. Division of Labor and Social Solidarity[237]

The most remarkable effect of the division of labor is not that it
accentuates the distinction of functions already divided but that it
makes them interdependent. Its role in every case is not simply to
embellish or perfect existing societies but to make possible societies
which, without it, would not exist. Should the division of labor between
the sexes be diminished beyond a certain point, the family would cease
to exist and only ephemeral sexual relations would remain. If the sexes
had never been separated at all, no form of social life would ever have
arisen. It is possible that the economic utility of the division of
labor has been a factor in producing the existing form of conjugal
society. Nevertheless, the society thus created is not limited to merely
economic interests; it represents a unique social and moral order.
Individuals are mutually bound together who otherwise would be
independent. Instead of developing separately, they concert their
efforts; they are interdependent parts of a unity which is effective not
only in the brief moments during which there is an interchange of
services but afterward indefinitely. For example, does not conjugal
solidarity of the type which exists today among the most cultivated
people exert its influence constantly and in all the details of life? On
the other hand, societies which are created by the division of labor
inevitably bear the mark of their origin. Having this special origin, it
is not possible that they should resemble those societies which have
their origin in the attraction of like for like; the latter are
inevitably constituted in another manner, repose on other foundations,
and appeal to other sentiments.

The assumption that the social relations resulting from the division of
labor consist in an exchange of services merely is a misconception of
what this exchange implies and of the effects it produces. It assumes
that two beings are mutually dependent the one on the other, because
they are both incomplete without the other. It interprets this mutual
dependence as a purely external relation. Actually this is merely the
superficial expression of an internal and more profound state. Precisely
because this state is constant, it provokes a complex of mental images
which function with a continuity independent of the series of external
relations. The image of that which completes us is inseparable from t