While the home makers of some of the professional classes are more conservative than the men, this is not true of those women who are actively engaged in professional work themselves. They are more radical than men of the same class, and are leaders not only in movements for bettering the condition of women, but in progressive movements affecting society as a whole. As a rule they are a superior intellectual type, and not representative of the average woman any more than our intellectual _elite_ among the men represent the average man, for the average person is characterized by adaptability rather than by the spirit of innovations. The professional classes here discussed are those which have developed out of a class of savants who were originally and primarily engaged with knowledge of an occult nature. It is true that out of these classes engaged in the transmission of knowledge have developed a class of scientists whose field of activity is industrial, the engineer groups--and whose standard of living tends to correspond to the money income of the family. It is often considerably larger than the income of the professional man employed in college work. For that reason the wife of the professional man is not confronted with the same problems as the wife of the teacher. The social status of the professional people whose activities are confined to the industrial field is measured by their financial status. This makes it unnecessary for them to maintain a plane of consumption at variance with their income. FOOTNOTES: [61] Jordan, _The Voice of the Scholar_, pp. 173-4. [62] Paulsen, _German Universities, Character and Historical Development_, pp. 21-22. [63] Jordan, _The Voice of the Scholar_, pp. 115-6. [64] Veblen, _The Theory of the Leisure Class_, p. 375. [65] Veblen, _The Theory of the Leisure Class_, pp. 375-6. [66] _Outlook_, Vol. 88, pp. 481, 515. CHAPTER VII THE EFFECTS OF INDUSTRIAL CHANGES UPON MARRIAGE The effect of industrial changes upon marriage among primitive peoples has been discussed at some length by students of primitive conditions. So closely do the industrial habits of mankind affect the social that one is forced to concede an important place to the economic in the evolution of the race. The preëminence of the struggle for subsistence in the history of civilization shows how reckless it is to make historical interpretations while neglecting the industrial side of society.