had no occasion to complain. The
division of labor in the family had regulated the distribution of
property between man and wife. This division of labor remained
unchanged. Yet the former domestic relation was now reversed, simply
because the division of labor outside of the family had been altered.
The same cause that once had secured the supremacy in the house for
women, viz., the confining of women's activity to domestic labor, now
assured the supremacy of the men in the households. The domestic labor
of women was considered insignificant in comparison to men's work for a
living. The latter was everything, the former a negligible quantity. At
this early stage we can already see that the emancipation of women and
their equality with men are impossible and remain so, as long as women
are excluded from social production and restricted to domestic labor.
The emancipation of women becomes feasible only then when women are
enabled to take part extensively in social production, and when domestic
duties require their attention in a minor degree. This state of things
was brought about by the modern great industries, which not only admit
of women's liberal participation in production, but actually call for it
and, besides, endeavor to transform domestic work also into a public
industry.

Man's advent to practical supremacy in the household marked the removal
of the last barrier to his universal supremacy. His unlimited rule was
emphasized and endowed with continuity by the downfall of matriarchy,
the introduction of patriarchy, and the gradual transition from the
pairing family to the monogamic family. This made a breach in the old
gentile order. The monogamic family became a power and lifted a
threatening hand against the gens.

The next step brings us to the upper stage of barbarism, that period in
which all nations of civilization go through their heroic era. It is the
time of the iron sword, but also of the iron plow share and axe. The
iron had become the servant of man. It is the last and most important of
all raw products that play a revolutionary role in history; the last--if
we except the potato.

Iron brought about agriculture on a larger scale and the clearing of
extensive forest tracts for cultivation. It gave to the craftsman a tool
of such hardness and sharpness that no stone, no other known metal,
could withstand it. All this came about gradually. The first iron was
often softer than bronze. Therefore stone im