ion we may accordingly look for
survivals of the tabu on luxuries at least to the extent of a
conventional deprecation of their use by the unfree and dependent class.
This is more particularly true as regards certain luxuries, the use of
which by the dependent class would detract sensibly from the comfort
or pleasure of their masters, or which are held to be of doubtful
legitimacy on other grounds. In the apprehension of the great
conservative middle class of Western civilisation the use of these
various stimulants is obnoxious to at least one, if not both, of these
objections; and it is a fact too significant to be passed over that it
is precisely among these middle classes of the Germanic culture, with
their strong surviving sense of the patriarchal proprieties, that
the women are to the greatest extent subject to a qualified tabu on
narcotics and alcoholic beverages. With many qualifications--with more
qualifications as the patriarchal tradition has gradually weakened--the
general rule is felt to be right and binding that women should consume
only for the benefit of their masters. The objection of course presents
itself that expenditure on women's dress and household paraphernalia is
an obvious exception to this rule; but it will appear in the sequel that
this exception is much more obvious than substantial. During the earlier
stages of economic development, consumption of goods without stint,
especially consumption of the better grades of goods,--ideally all
consumption in excess of the subsistence minimum,--pertains normally
to the leisure class. This restriction tends to disappear, at least
formally, after the later peaceable stage has been reached, with private
ownership of goods and an industrial system based on wage labour or
on the petty household economy. But during the earlier quasi-peaceable
stage, when so many of the traditions through which the institution of a
leisure class has affected the economic life of later times were taking
form and consistency, this principle has had the force of a conventional
law. It has served as the norm to which consumption has tended to
conform, and any appreciable departure from it is to be regarded as
an aberrant form, sure to be eliminated sooner or later in the further
course of development.

The quasi-peaceable gentleman of leisure, then, not only consumes of the
staff of life beyond the minimum required for subsistence and physical
efficiency, but his consumption also