She will still
be her husband's chattel, as she was her father's chattel before
her purchase, but she is at the same time of her father's gentle
blood; and hence there is a moral incongruity in her occupying
herself with the debasing employments of her fellow-servants.
However completely she may be subject to her master, and however
inferior to the male members of the social stratum in which her
birth has placed her, the principle that gentility is
transmissible will act to place her above the common slave; and
so soon as this principle has acquired a prescriptive authority
it will act to invest her in some measure with that prerogative
of leisure which is the chief mark of gentility. Furthered by
this principle of transmissible gentility the wife's exemption
gains in scope, if the wealth of her owner permits it, until it
includes exemption from debasing menial service as well as from
handicraft. As the industrial development goes on and property
becomes massed in relatively fewer hands, the conventional
standard of wealth of the upper class rises. The same tendency to
exemption from handicraft, and in the course of time from menial
domestic employments, will then assert itself as regards the
other wives, if such there are, and also as regards other
servants in immediate attendance upon the person of their master.
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