[172] See Emile Faguet, _Le Féminisme_, p. 173: “_Quand on songe que la coûtume de Bretagne et que l’Ordonnance de Blois de 1579 (executive dans tout le Royaume) condamnaient à la peine de mort, les hommes coupables de rapt!_” As to the spiritual side of the seventeenth century, on the other hand, we have only to think of Molière’s _Précieuses Ridicules_ and _Les Femmes Savantes_, each of which plays caricatures the then existing phenomenon of the learned woman. [173] Faguet, Op. cit. [174] See _Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century_, p. 41. [175] Alice Clark, Op. cit., pp. 14-18. [176] _Ibid._, Op. cit., p. 25. [177] Alice Clark, pp. 28-31. [178] Weininger agrees that it is wholly erroneous to suggest that hitherto women have had no opportunity for the undisturbed development of their mental powers (see Op. cit., p. 72), but, as usual, the support of his contention is feeble and unconvincing. [179] Miss Clark is of the opinion that even in these domestic duties she was not altogether unassisted by men in former times, as the following passage shows: “On the other hand it may be urged that, if women were on the whole more actively engaged in industrial work during the seventeenth century than they were in the first decade of the twentieth century, men were much more occupied with domestic affairs than they are now. Men in all classes gave time and care to the education of their children, and the young unmarried men, who generally occupied positions as apprentices and servants, were partly employed over domestic work. Therefore, though it is now taken for granted that domestic work will be done by women, a considerable proportion of it in former days fell to the share of the men.” (Op. cit., p. 5.) [180] If she does so, it only means disaster. As late as a generation ago, if she happened to be in India, she was put to no trouble whatsoever; for the custom there, in such circumstances, was for the European mother to seek out a native mother who could act as wet-nurse. The fact that this almost invariably meant—as every Anglo-Indian will tell you—the death of the native woman’s own child, was cynically overlooked by the British occupiers of India. [181] Paul Lecroix, Op. cit., pp. 370-371. [182] Weininger comes to the same conclusion. See Op. cit., pp. 150-151 and 196. But he does not give the same reasons as I do. His conclusion is much more of a guess than mine is, and therefore makes one suspect that he was actuated by strong prejudice.