possession. The
users may have had certain claims to the land, but that was all.

Two of the industrial acquisitions of this stage are especially
important. The first is the weaving loom, the second the melting of
metal ore and the use of metals in manufacture. Copper, tin, and their
alloy, bronze, were the most essential of them. Bronze furnished tools
and weapons, but could not displace stone implements. Only iron could
have done that, but the production of iron was as yet unknown. Gold and
silver were already used for ornament and decoration, and must have been
far more precious than copper and bronze.

The increase of production in all branches--stock raising, agriculture,
domestic handicrafts--enabled human labor power to produce more than was
necessary for its maintenance. It increased at the same time the amount
of daily work that fell to the lot of every member of a gens, a
household, or a single family. The addition of more labor power became
desirable. It was furnished by war; the captured enemies were
transformed into slaves. Under the given historical conditions, the
first great division of social labor, by increasing the productivity of
labor, adding to the wealth, and enlarging the field of productive
activity, necessarily carried slavery in its wake. Out of the first
great division of social labor arose the first great division of society
into two classes: masters and servants, exploiters and exploited.

How and when the herds were transferred from the collective ownership of
the tribe or gens to the proprietorship of the heads of the families, is
not known to us. But it must have been practically accomplished in this
stage. The herds and the other new objects of wealth brought about a
revolution in the family. Procuring the means of existence had always
been the man's business. The tools of production were manufactured and
owned by him. The herds were the new tools of production, and their
taming and tending was his work. Hence he owned the cattle and the
commodities and slaves obtained in exchange for them. All the surplus
now resulting from production fell to the share of the man. The woman
shared in its fruition, but she could not claim its ownership. The
"savage" warrior and hunter had been content to occupy the second place
in the house, to give precedence to the woman. The "gentler" shepherd,
standing on his wealth, assumed the first place and forced the woman
back into the second place. And she