of human societies continued.
Those activities, due to female influence, developing and opening up
new ways in all directions, until we have that early civilisation,
which I have called the mother-age.

All the world over, even to this day, this separation in the labour
activities of the two sexes can be traced. Destructive work, demanding
a special development of strength, with corresponding periods of rest,
falls to men; and contrasted with this violent and intermittent male
force we find, with the same uniformity, that the work of women is
domestic and constructive, being connected with the care of children
and all the various industries which radiate from the home--work
demanding a different kind of strength, more enduring, more
continuous, but at a lower tension.

Bonwick's account of the work of Tasmanian women may be taken as
typical--

"In addition to the necessary duty of looking after the
children, the women had to provide all the food for the
household excepting that derived from the chase of the
kangaroo. They climbed up hills for the opossum" (a very
difficult task, requiring great strength and also skill),
"delved in the ground for yams, native bread, and nutritious
roots, groped about the rocks for shellfish, dived beneath
the sea for oysters, and fished for the finny tribe. In
addition to this, they carried, on their frequent tramps,
the household stuffs in native baskets of their own
manufacture."[144]

[144] _Daily Life and Origin of the Tasmanians_, p. 55.

Among the Indians of Guiana the men's work is to hunt, and to cut down
the trees when the cassava is to be planted. When the men have felled
the trees and cleaned the ground, the women plant the cassava and
undertake all the subsequent operations; agriculture is entirely in
their hands. They are little, if at all, weaker than the men, and they
work all day while the men are often in their hammocks smoking; but
there is no cruelty or oppression exercised by the men towards the
women.[145]

[145] Everard im Thurn, _Among the Indians of Guiana_.

In Africa we meet with much the same conditions of labour. "The work
is done chiefly by the women, this is universal; they hoe the fields,
sow the seed, and reap the harvest. To them, too, falls all the labour
of house-building, grinding corn, brewing beer, cooking, washing, and
caring for almost all the material interests of the commun