lways run away and leave the female
to feed and fight for herself and her offspring, and he is very prone to
do so. Even when he stays by and shares in the joy of the newly born he
generally leaves the female to get ready the nest, and largely she
protects and provisions it.

Among domesticated animals, where their working possibilities have been
very highly developed, females are much more desirable workers than
males. The maternal function partly explains this, as in the case of
cows and hens which give us milk and eggs; and even with mares and sheep
the offspring adds to the general working value. Still, it seems to be
true that even for purposes of draught, the males are of less value than
the females, unless reduced to the non-sexual condition of geldings and
oxen. The stallion, bull or ram is too katabolic, too much of a
consuming, distributing, destroying force to be very valuable in the
daily routine of agriculture or commerce. While the female is generally
smaller and less powerful than the male, she is quiet, easily enslaved;
and, as we have said, her maternal functions can be diverted to our
daily use. She produces more workers, and her flesh is more palatable,
because less distinctive, than that of the male. Hence, among
domesticated animals, selection, based on considerations of work,
multiplies females and keeps males only for breeding purposes.

As a quadruped, the female suffers very little handicap from the
functions peculiar to her sex, except when actually carrying her young
or nursing them. When she stands erect, however, the support for the
special organs of reproduction is far from ideal; heavy lifting, or
long-continued standing, often leads to disaster, and the periodic
functions, even in the healthiest conditions, must always place women
at a working disadvantage as compared with men. Add to this the fact
that women are smaller, less agile, and far less strong, than men, and,
even when not encumbered with young, it is clear that a woman, when
confronting physical work in competition with men, needs something more
than a fair field and free competition.[33] Idealists and travelers
among primitive people love to tell us how easily women meet their
special functions, carrying burdens equal to those carried by men when
on the march, and dropping out from the caravan for only a few hours to
give birth to a child; but the fact remains that women in all primitive
societies age quickly and that those w