customs, and in a sense therefore the lady in command. But for the mass of old women in less advanced civilizations the fear of their tendency toward "witchcraft," the dislike of their power as mothersin-law and the complete ignorance of their possibilities of social use, combine to make them either ignored. or so overworked as to destroy them prematurely.

As law supersedes custom, and history grows out of unwritten experience, the individual lady becomes more clearly one of a class, with certain distinctive caste markings. The power of the individual, even in the restricted sense possible to women of any era, is always manifested by the lady; but when she is no longer a rare exception and becomes one of many, her place and function are fixed, as in classic civilization. The Roman matron, at the head of her household, pure and high-minded, bred in a rigid puritanism that forbade frivolity and selfishness in women, comrade of her husband and his men-friends, dignified by certain noble relations to the State, and in later times winning great freedom of thought and movement, strong legal protection and economic power, is one type. The Greek wife, secluded within her home walls and a perpetual minor, unlearned and unfree, with whatever feeble "influence" she might have gained through her husband's affection largely neutralized by the brilliant women outside the family bond who alone shared the intellectual life of her country, is another type. The Greek wife, however, 2 "distinguished chiefly," as has been well said, "by the number of things she might 'Emily J. Putnam, The Lady.

not do," was a lady only in the strictly economic sense of one who has slaves and servants to wait upon her; she never attained the spiritual possibilities of the privileged class of women. The Feudal lady, although busy with many cares and much restricted in law and custom, yet had a recognized place of social command, especially during the long absences of the lord of the castle in his wars and his pleasures; and her power over "her set," and over the dependants of her house, was of the strongest. She was able to surround herself with a home atmosphere of her own choosing and with a crowd of artists, singers, writers and courtiers. who were my lady's knights, rather than my lord's vassals. The lady of the manor house, again, friend of churchmen and intimate of statesmen, made it clear amid the changing life of the Renaissance and at the beginning of modern civilization that although man may be the "master" of the house, woman is the mistress of its functions. He may and still does rule all the conditions of vital existence, but she controls the realm of conventional society in its ethics, its æsthetics, and its manifold customs.

In any case, in near or remote times, the lady stands on a pedestal above the common life in privilege and protection, raised to distinction of personal outline and individual opportunity either by slave laborers or serving attendants or at least by mechanisms that lessen her work for self or for family. She is placed and sustained there, for the most part, by some one man or some small class of men of power and wealth. In early times she owes her escape from that complete

subordination of personal wish to family obligation. that marks the lot of the mass of women, to her personal charms, physical or mental, and to her good fortune in securing the kind of husband who can afford and appreciate a lady for a wife. As family autonomy becomes more strictly outlined in historic periods, as the patriarchal system, whether more or less perfect in form, develops "noble blood," as the growth of private property gives special power to the strong and the favored, she becomes able to inherit "in her own right" the chance to stand upon this pedestal and to attain this opportunity. As, for example, this same Judith, wife of Ethelwolf, was accounted "noble" before her marriage and afterward sat upon an equal throne beside her royal husband.

The lady then, as daughter, wife or mother, is in a social position elevated above the common life and can therefore begin to show special gifts of quality or faculty, although in a limited, "feminine" field of thought and action. She may, as a primary distinction, differ in her way of life from the unmitigated usefulness demanded of the mass of her sex. She can have things done for her instead of always doing things for others. She may therefore have some leisure to learn, and still more important, some chance to find out what she would like to be and to do on her own account. She can thus begin to develop that "infinite variety" in womanliness which is the basis of selective love. She can begin to make conscious and to attach to herself that idealism in man of which she is destined to become the custodian and guide. She

can lead the way toward that "play activity" of sexattraction which gives the delicate touch of romance to the mating of men and women. She can, when risen to full self-consciousness, realize in sensitive temperamental reaction to the Time-Spirit of her day the essence of the intellectual life of man; even when still forbidden to share his formal learning. She can thus draw great and wise men to her intimate companionship by an appreciation untroubled by desire for selfexpression. In this way she may become the special providence of artists and men of talent, inspire works of genius, and, incidentally, keep genius from starving to death before it has "verified its credentials." She can incite to noblest devotion to the State and stimulate activity to ends of personal and domestic, even ecclesiastical and civic, beauty. Emerson says: "Women stimulate production and finish literature and art in conversation." He means here, of course, the lady of the cultured circles of society, and she has often become all that this implies.

It took the lady a long time to emerge from the indistinguishable mass of merely useful womanhood. The "gentleman," in the sense of a man who is served by slave, vassal or inferior of some sort and who can order others to relieve him of disagreeable tasks, arrived first; and naturally, since he so early secured the constant service of woman, as the first slave, before he could settle down sufficiently to tame for servitude his alien captives or his own weaker brethren. The degraded condition of the high-caste Hindoo wife today shows how far the men of a race can go toward

superior intellectual life, refinement of taste, high breeding in manners, freedom in choice of occupation, and the capacity for noble friendships among their own sex, and yet leave their women behind in the darkness of ignorance and domestic servitude.

Not until some women were raised above the necessity of unremitting drudgery, not until some wives were chosen for other than purely economic reasons or even those of family inheritance, could the lady appear. Not until the ideal of desirable womanhood included some sense of a social return from her leisure, and some perception of the advantage to man of sharing his pleasures with woman, could the class of the lady evolve. As members of such a class the lady has shown the special traits and functions of her order with well-defined outline. Certain things she must never do; certain others she must always do; and certain others she may attempt or should if possible accomplish-quite in the same fashion as other classes in society have been differentiated.

First, then, the lady must not work at the forms of labor demanded of the rest of her sex. At least she must not do so while the rules and practice of ladyhood are forming. After her social status is secure, and the ideal of the lady contains a character content as well as an economic differentiation, she may do many unusual things, and not imperil her caste. But, as in the case of all "climbers," she must obey conventional taboo to the letter while winning her prominence. On the other hand, the lady must be as responsible for the comfort of her family by securing it through the