But, it has also been objected, "What, and if the female half of humanity,
though able, in addition to the exercise of its reproductive functions, to
bear its share in the new fields of social labour as it did in the old, be
yet in certain directions a less productive labourer than the male? What
if, in the main, the result of the labour of the two halves of humanity
should not be found to be exactly equal?"

To this it may be answered, that it is within the range of possibility
that, mysteriously co-ordinated with the male reproductive function in the
human, there may also be in some directions a tendency to possess gifts for
labour useful and beneficial to the race in the stage of growth it has now
reached, in excess of those possessed by the female. We see no reason why
this should be so, and, in the present state of our knowledge, this is a
point on which no sane person would dogmatise; but it is possible! It may,
on the other hand be, that, taken in the bulk, when all the branches of
productive labour be considered, as the ages pass, the value of the labour
of the two halves of humanity will be found so identical and so closely to
balance, that no superiority can possibly be asserted of either, as the
result of the closest analysis. This also is possible.

But, it may also be, that, when the bulk and sum-total of human activities
is surveyed in future ages, it will be found that the value of the labour
of the female in the world that is rising about us, has exceeded in quality
or in quantity that of the male. We see no reason either, why this should
be; there is nothing in the nature of the reproductive function in the
female human which of necessity implies such superiority.

Yet it may be, that, with the smaller general bulk and the muscular
fineness, and the preponderance of brain and nervous system in net bulk