To such an extent may female slavery give its character to the economic life under the quasi-peaceable culture that the women even comes to serve as a unit of value among peoples occupying this cultural stage--as for instance in Homeric times.

Where this is the case there need be little question but that the basis of the industrial system is chattel slavery and that the women are commonly slaves.

The great, pervading human relation in such a system is that of master and servant.

The accepted evidence of wealth is the possession of many women, and presently also of other slaves engaged in attendance on their master's person and in producing goods for him.
A division of labour presently sets in, whereby personal service and attendance on the master becomes the special office of a portion of the servants, while those who are wholly employed in industrial occupations proper are removed more and more from all immediate relation to the person of their owner.

At the same time those servants whose office is personal service, including domestic duties, come gradually to be exempted from productive industry carried on for gain.
This process of progressive exemption from the common run of industrial employment will commonly begin with the exemption of the wife, or the chief wife.