CHAPTER VII
THE ECONOMIC PROBLEM
(1) The Wage-Earner
"And here I'll fling the pillow, there the bolster,
This way the coverlet, another way the sheets :
Ay, and amid this hurly, I intend,
That all is done in reverent care of her ;
And, in conclusion, she shall watch all night ;
And, if she chance to nod, I'll rail and brawl,
And with the clamour keep her still awake.
This is a way to kill a wife with kindness."
THE day of the rule of man's physical force over women is over in what are called the civilised countries—a relative term! There are, of course, very many unacknowledged relics of it, but they are disappearing, partly through the growth of reason, partly through the insistent hammering of the women and their men champions. But there is another source of dominance of man over woman, more insidious, more penetrating, much more difficult to abolish: this is the dominance of man by economic force.
It is difficult to believe in the intellectual honesty of those feminists who declare that women must
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