There supervenes a division
of labour among the servants or dependents whose life is spent in
maintaining the honour of the gentleman of leisure. So that,
while one group produces goods for him, another group, usually
headed by the wife, or chief, consumes for him in conspicuous
leisure; thereby putting in evidence his ability to sustain large
pecuniary damage without impairing his superior opulence.
This somewhat idealized and diagrammatic outline of the
development and nature of domestic service comes nearest being
true for that cultural stage which was here been named the
"quasi-peaceable" stage of industry. At this stage personal
service first rises to the position of an economic institution,
and it is at this stage that it occupies the largest place in the
community's scheme of life. In the cultural sequence, the
quasi-peaceable stage follows the predatory stage proper, the two
being successive phases of barbarian life. Its characteristic
feature is a formal observance of peace and order, at the same
time that life at this stage still has too much of coercion and
class antagonism to be called peaceable in the full sense of the
word. For many purposes, and from another point of view than the
economic one, it might as well be named the stage of status.
Pages:
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96