From the sixteenth to the nineteenth century little change was effected in the home life of the people. Many of the houses had “but a single great fireplace.” At the beginning of the nineteenth century came many improvements in household affairs. “The common use of the friction matches after 1830 saved an infinitude of pains to the cook, the workman, and the smoker; instead of the iron pots and Dutch ovens came the air-tight cook stove, an unspeakable good friend to the housewife; for the open fire was substituted the wood-stove, and then the coal-stove, which leaked gas but saved toil and trouble; for the labor of the needle which has kept feminine fingers employed from the time of Penelope, came the sewing-machine, rude enough at first, which revolutionized the making of clothing.”[34] History shows from the earliest times the employment of women of the higher social classes within doors. Although the women of the laboring classes are employed extensively in the fields there is always an apparent tendency for them to center their activities about the hearth. The performance of out-door tasks among women is determined as much by their class status as sex status. The outdoor work of women resulted less from the tyranny of one sex over another than from the tyranny of one class over another. Whatever the lot of the women field laborers, the lot of their husbands and brothers was little better. The difference between the status of men and women is estimated by the nature of their work when engaged in the same general occupation as agriculture. Women seem to be deprived of the element of choice in their work since they perform the most monotonous and uninteresting tasks, and the men perform the work allowing for the greatest play of individuality and skill. How much this division of work is due to differences of authority, and how much to the difference in the assumption of responsibility, is difficult to say. It is certainly more convenient for women not to assume responsibilities for out-door work when they have to care for small children; and what may be attributed to an exercise of authority of men over women, may be due to custom having its basis in convenience. It is interesting to note that in practically all civilized societies women are the first to profit by any change doing away with the necessity of all the members of the family being employed in the field. This fact alone would indicate a common recognition of the necessity of protecting women from the severest work for the good of the race. It may have its basis, too, in the inherent chivalry of man toward woman. FOOTNOTES: [13] Maspero, _Dawn of Civilization_, p. 53. [14] Hobhouse, _Evolution of Morals_, I, p. 189. [15] Sayce, _Babylonians and Assyrians_. [16] Fisher, _The Beginnings of Christianity_, p. 199. [17] Mommsen, _History of Rome_, II, p. 484. [18] Mommsen, _History of Rome_, I, p. 91.