sion of
labour between the sexes was not in any sense an arrangement dictated
by men, nor did they impose the women's tasks upon them. The view that
the women are forced to work by the laziness of the men, and that
their heavy and incessant labour is a proof of their degraded position
is entirely out of focus. Quite the reverse is the truth. Evidence is
not wanting of the great advantage arising to women from their close
connection with labour. It was largely their control over the food
supply and their position as actual producers which gave them so much
influence, and even authority in the mother-age. In this connection I
may quote the statement of Miss Werner about the African women as
representing the true conditions--

"I cannot say that, so far as my own observations went, the
women's lot seemed to be a specially hard one. In fact, they
are too important an element in the community not to be
treated with consideration. The fact that they do most of
the heavy field-work does not imply that they are a
down-trodden sex. On the contrary, it gives them a
considerable pull, as a man will think twice before
endangering his food supply."[173]

[173] "Our Subject Races," _The Reformer_, April 1897, p. 43.

Mr. Horatio Hale, a well-known American anthropologist likewise
observes--

"The common opinion that women among savage tribes in
general are treated with harshness, and regarded as slaves,
or at least as inferiors, is, like many common opinions,
based on error, originating in too large and indiscriminate
deduction from narrow premises.... The wife of a Samoan
landowner or Navajo shepherd has no occasion, so far as her
position in her family or among her people, to envy the wife
of a German peasant."[174]

[174] _Journal Anthropological Institute_, May 1892, p. 427,
cited by H. Ellis.

Certainly savage women do not count their work as any degradation.
There is really an equal division of labour between the sexes, though
the work of the men is accomplished more fitfully than that of the
women. The militant activities of fighting and hunting are essential
in primitive life. The women know this, and they do their share--the
industrial share, willingly, without question, and without compulsion.
It is entirely absurd in this work-connection to regard men as the
oppressors of women. Rather the advantage is on the women's side.