a matter of course, and on the assumption that they enter into what is commonly known as her "sphere." And it is this principle—that woman's work is the kind of work which man prefers not to do—which regulates and defines not only the labour of a woman in her own household, but the labour of women generally.
I am quite aware that this principle is not openly admitted in assigning to woman her share of the world's work—that, on the contrary, the results of its application are explained away on the theory that there is a "natural" division of labour between the two sexes. But when one comes to examine that theory, dispassionately and without prejudice, one finds that it does not hold water—or very little—since the estimate of woman's "natural" work is such an exceedingly variable quantity. One nation, people, or class, will esteem it "natural" in woman to perform certain duties which, in another nation, people, or class, are entirely left to men—so much so, that woman's sphere, like morality, seems to be defined by considerations "purely geographical." Unless we grasp the underlying principle that woman's "natural" labour in
