Note 30 — Chapter I · DEFINITION AND DISTINCTION FROM KINDRED PHENOMENA.

We may even go farther and say: Slavery proper does not exist, when there are none but female slaves. For when females only are enslaved, the reason probably is, that they are valued as women, not only as labourers; otherwise males would be enslaved too. So, according to Meyer30, in the early stages of ancient history, most of the slaves were women and their chief function was a sexual one. And even where such women are not, all of them, actually treated as wives or concubines, but only kept as labourers, there is no slavery in the true sense of the word. In such cases, the husband keeps his wife or wives subjected; this leads to the keeping of numerous subjected females, who are scarcely to be called wives. But it is always women, as the weaker sex, who are subjected to the men; subjection of labourers, only in their quality of labourers, does not exist. The labourers have the name, if not the state, of wives; this proves that the subjection of labourers as such, i.e. slavery, is not yet developed.