time, and that if not averted "the whole body of
females in civilized societies must sink into a state of more or less
absolute dependence."

[296] In Rome and in Japan, Hobhouse notes (op. cit., vol. i, pp. 169,
176), the patriarchal system reached its fullest extension, yet the laws
of both these countries placed the husband in a position of practical
subjugation to a rich wife.

[297] Herodotus, Bk. ii, Ch. XXXV. Herodotus noted that it was the woman
and not the man on whom the responsibility for supporting aged parents
rested. That alone involved a very high economic position of women. It is
not surprising that to some observers, as to Diodorus Siculus, it seemed
that the Egyptian woman was mistress over her husband.

[298] Hobhouse (loc. cit.), Hale, and also Grosse, believe that good
economic position of a people involves high position of women. Westermarck
(_Moral Ideas_, vol. i, p. 661), here in agreement with Olive Schreiner,
thinks this statement cannot be accepted without modification, though
agreeing that agricultural life has a good effect on woman's position,
because they themselves become actively engaged in it. A good economic
position has no real effect in raising woman's position, unless women
themselves take a real and not merely parasitic part in it.

[299] Westermarck (_Moral Ideas_, vol. i, Ch. XXVI, vol. ii, p. 29) gives
numerous references with regard to the considerable proprietary and other
privileges of women among savages which tend to be lost at a somewhat
higher stage of culture.

[300] The steady rise in the proportion of women among English workers in
machine industries began in 1851. There are now, it is estimated, three
and a half million women employed in industrial occupations, beside a
million and a half domestic servants. (See for details, James Haslam, in a
series of papers in the _Englishwoman_ 1909.)

[301] See, e.g., J.A. Hobson, _The Evolution of Modern Capitalism_, second
edition, 1907, Ch. XII, "Women in Modern Industry."

[302] Hobhouse, op. cit., vol. i, p. 228.

[303] Fielding, _Tom Jones_, Bk. iii, Ch. VII.

[304] Even the Church to some extent adopted this allotment of the
responsibility, and "solicitation," i.e., the sin of a confessor in
seducing his female penitent, is constantly treated as exclusively the
confessor's sin.

[305] Adolf Gerson, _Sexual-Probleme_, Sept., 1908, p. 547.

[306] It has already been necessary to refer to the unfortunate results