uently: "A man hunts, spears
fish, fights and sits about, all the rest is woman's work." This may
be accepted as a fair statement of how work is divided between the two
sexes among primitive peoples. Now, what I wish to make plain is that
it was an arrangement in which the advantage was really on the side of
the woman rather than on that of the man. I would refer the reader
back to what has been said on this subject in Chapter III, where I
summed up the conditions acting on the women in the hypothetical first
stage of the primordial family. We saw that the males were chiefly
concerned with the absorbing duties of sex and fighting rivals, and
also hunting for game. The women's interest, on the other hand, was
bent on domestic activities--in caring for their children and
developing the food supplies immediately around them. From the
hearth-home, or shelter, as the start of settled life, and with their
intelligence sharpened by the keen chisel of necessity, women carried
on their work as the organisers and directors of industrial
occupations. Very slowly did they make each far-reaching discovery;
seeds cast into the ground sprouted and gave the first start of
agriculture. The plant world gave women the best returns for the
efforts they made, and they began to store up food. Contrivance
followed contrivance, each one making it possible for women to do
more. Certain animals, possibly brought back by the hunters from the
forests, were kept and tamed. Presently the use of fire was
discovered--we know not how--but women became the guardians of this
source of life. And now, instead of caves or tree-shelters, there were
huts and tents and houses, and of these, too, women were frequently
the builders. The home from the first was of greater importance to the
women; it was the place where the errant males rejoined their wives
and children, and hence the women became the owners of the homes and
the heads of households. For as yet the men were occupied in fighting.
The clumsy and the stupid among them were killed soonest; the fine
hand, the quick eye--these prevailed age by age. Tools and weapons
were doubtless fashioned by these fighters, but for destruction; the
male's attention was directed mainly by his own desires. And may we
not accept that among the most pressing activities of women was the
need to tame man and make him social, so that he could endure the
rights of others than himself?

So through the long generations the life