husband's creditors from before her marriage, and that their common property could not be disposed of without her consent.
The custom was for a man to marry one wife, unless she was barren, in which case he had the right to marry another. The first wife retained her position as mistress of the house, and she was entitled to receive compensation and to recover her dowry, while the new woman was to be obedient to her and obliged to "wash her feet and carry her chair to the temple of the lord." In many cases the first wife would present her husband with a concubine or a slave girl to bear him children; once she had done so she became free, though never at all the equal of the first, who retained the right to sell her or to make her leave the house. The story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar makes plain to us the persistence and spread of this custom, and tells us that this phenomenon passed to and spread among the other peoples dwelling in the Fertile Crescent, just as other religious ideas, social customs, sciences, and other things were passed on.
When a man received a slave girl from his wife, he had no right to bring another into the house; if he did, the first wife had the right to return to her father's house, taking her dowry with her.
As for the woman's importance and her essential mission, it was motherhood and the preservation of the man's line; and if she refused conjugal relations while in good health, she was thrown into the water and drowned. The freedom she enjoyed was a consequence of this essential mission. Yet her mission and her possibilities were not confined to household duties and the bearing of children; the field was also open before her in the religious temples.
At the beginning of the Sumerian age the Sumerian woman wore a garment made of two pieces: the first, a long undershirt; the second, a long-sleeved cloak hanging down to the ground and
fastened at the shoulders with a copper pin.
The woman — as is her way in every place and time — took care in dressing her hair, curling it in front so that it crowned the forehead, and letting some of its tresses hang down before the shoulders. On her head she wore a band consisting of a ring of twisted cloth or, at times, of metal.
It was the woman's custom to adorn her neck with necklaces and collars, from which hung various kinds of amulets and charms. She wore bracelets on her wrists, fashioned of gold, silver, carnelian, emerald, glass, and other precious stones. She used pins to fasten her clothing, ornamented with heads of precious metals or precious stones; and gold and silver anklets were likewise known, on arms and feet.
Political demands may differ from one state to another, and economic and military problems may differ. But the demands of woman are one and the same in every land. That is because woman concerns herself with the immediate human problems bound up with natural social life, and they are for that reason common to all nations. It behooves the woman, then, to keep pace with the activity being exerted by her colleagues in every country, so as to remain in close touch with this joint activity for raising the social level of the world.
This past summer a conference of 840 women of the Labour Party met in Britain to examine the most important social problems of today which women consider to be corrupting the working of the social order in the nation. Here are some of the problems it treated and the proposals it advanced for their solution.
First — the problem of the breakdown of married life, which leads either to divorce or to a silent inner tragedy played out behind the curtain. These problems usually arise from one party's ignorance of the foundations of sound married life, or from causes of health, or from other causes upon which science can shed light. This conference therefore proposed the appointment of special branch offices whose purpose would be to give sound guidance to the person intending marriage before he marries, and to carry out a medical examination of those seeking marriage to make certain of their soundness. Such offices could forestall many problems before they occur.
Second — this conference treated the problem of the motion-picture films that expose children from their earliest years to scenes which may harm their psychological growth; it was therefore proposed to place a special censorship over the films that minors may be permitted to see.
Third — to prevent the spread of diseases in society, the government must keep strict watch over the cleanliness of food in public establishments.
Fourth — the government must concern itself with providing foodstuffs for children, so as to secure for tomorrow men and women of sound bodies.
Fifth — the government must strive to lower house rents so that large, crowded families may find adequate dwellings for themselves.
These are some of the demands of the women's conference, and they do not differ from the problems that face the woman among us, which she strives to solve through the women's associations. For the problem of woman is one human problem in all nations.