competitive warfare
between industry and industry, and between whole regions--country
against country, continent against continent--the labor-power of woman
comes into ever greater demand.

The special causes, from which flows this ever increasing enlistment of
woman in ever increasing numbers, have been detailed above _in extenso_.
Woman is increasingly employed _along with man, or in his place, because
her material demands are less than those of man_. A circumstance
predicated upon her very nature as a sexual being, forces woman to
proffer herself cheaper. More frequently, on an average, than man, woman
is subject to physical derangements, that cause an interruption of work,
and that, in view of the combination and organization of labor, in force
to-day in large production, easily interfere with the steady course of
production. Pregnancy and lying-in prolong such pauses. The employer
turns the circumstance to advantage, and _recoups himself doubly for the
inconveniences_, that these disturbances put him to, _with the payment
of much lower wages_.

Moreover--as may be judged from the quotation on page 90, taken from
Marx's "Capital"--the work of married women has a particular fascination
for the employer. The married woman is, as working-woman, much more
"attentive and docile" than her unmarried sister. Thought of her
children drives her to the utmost exertion of her powers, in order to
earn the needed livelihood; accordingly, she submits to many an
imposition that the unmarried woman does not. In general, the
working-woman ventures only exceptionally to join her fellow-toilers in
securing better conditions of work. That raises her value in the eyes of
the employer; not infrequently she is even a trump card in his hands
against refractory workingmen. Moreover, she is endowed with great
patience, greater dexterity of fingers, a better developed artistic
sense, the latter of which renders her fitter than man for many branches
of work.

These female "virtues" are fully appreciated by the virtuous capitalist,
and thus, along with the development of industry, woman finds from year
to year an ever wider field for her application--but, and this is the
determining factor, _without tangible improvement to her social
condition_. If woman labor is employed, it generally sets male labor
free. The displaced male labor, however, wishes to live; it proffers
itself for lower wages; and the proffer, in turn, re-acts depressingly
up