working life of women seventeenth century - School of Economics ...

CONCLUSION CONCLUSION 307for their children. It is only among the class of wageearnersthat the capacity for reproduction appearsto have been checked, and in this class it was the underfeeding,rather than the over-working of the mothers,which rendered them incapable of rearing their iniants.The effect of the economic position of women, mustbe considered also in relation to another specialfunction which women exercise in society, namelythe part which they play in the psychic and moralreactions between the sexes. This subject has seldombeen investigated in a detached and truly scientificspirit, and therefore any generalisations that may besubmitted have little value. It will only be observedhere that the exercise by women of productive energyin the Elizabethan period, was not then inconsistentwith the attainment by the English race of its highwatermark in vitality and creative force, and that acomparison of the social standards described by Restorationand Elizabethan Dramatists, reveals a decadence,which, if not consequent upon, was at least coincidentwith, the general withdrawal of upper-class womenfrom their previous occupation with public and privateaffairs.Undoubtedly the removal of business and publicinterests from the home, resulted in a loss of educaticnalopportunities for girls ; a loss which was not made goodto them in other ways, and which therefore producedgenerations of women endowed with a lower mentaland moral calibre. The influence of women upontheir husbands narrowed as men's lives drifted awayfrom the home circle and centred more roundclubs and external business relations. Hence it cameabout that in the actual social organisation prevailingin England during the last half of the seventeenthcentury, the influence or psychic reaction of womenupon men was very different in character and muchmore limited in scope, than that exercised by themin the Elizabethan period. When considered inregard to the historical facts of this epoch, it will benoticed that the process by which the vital forcesand energy of the people were lowered and which incommon parlance is termed emasculation, accompaniedan evolution- which was in fact depressing thefemale forces of the nation, leaving to the male forcesan ever greater predominance in the directing of thepeople's destiny. The evidence given in the precedingchapters is insufficient to determine what is cause andwhat is effect in such complicated issues of life, and onlyshows that a great expenditure of productive energyon the part of women is not, under certain circumstances,inconsistent with the successful exercise oftheir maternal functions, nor does it necessarilyexhaust the creative vital forces of the race.The enquiry into the effect which the appearanceof Capitalism has produced upon the economic positionof women has drawn attention to another isssue,which concerns a fundamental relation of humansociety, namely to what extent does the Communityor ~tite include women among its integral members,and provide them with security for the exerciseof their functions, whether these may be of thesame character or different from those of men.It has been suggested that the earlier EnglishCommonwealth did .actually embrace both men andwomen in its idea of the " Whole," because it wascomposed of self-contained families consisting ofmen, women and children, all three of which areessential for the continuance of human society ;but the mechanical State which replaced it, and whosedevelopment has accompanied the extension of Capitalism,has regarded the individual, not the family,as its unit, and in England this State began with theconception that it was concerned only with maleindividuals. Th.us it came to pass that every womanlyfunction was considered as the private interest ofhusbands and fathers, bearing no relation to the life