industry is that it places a strain upon the spirit of chivalry which is a
basis of right relations between the sexes. Chivalry in men has
accompanied the comparative seclusion of women from the world, and is due
to those instincts which lead men to protect those who are weaker than
themselves. The term "the weaker sex" has a sound physiological basis.
With the passing of the domestic system of industry, however, the
seclusion of women becomes more and more a thing of the past. In factory
and shop they mingle promiscuously with men. Crowds of young working-girls
in every large city at the noon hour throng the streets. If they walk to
and from work they sometimes have to pass unprotected through parts of
the city given over to vice.[6] They thus become familiar with vice
conditions and are often subject to ungentlemanly, if not insulting,
conduct. There are in every community a number of men who are decent only
under restraint, and the economic position of wage-earning girls weakens
that restraint.

Moreover, the phrase "the weaker sex" has lost some of its significance.
Many occupations, such as clerking, stenographing, laundering, and certain
kinds of unskilled factory work are almost entirely taken over by women,
who labor throughout the same working-day as men, and usually at a lesser
wage than men would receive for the same kind of work. Under these
conditions, to talk of the physical weakness of women is to accuse our
civilization of cruelty.

Around wages most of the discussion has centered concerning the economic
aspect of vice. The investigations conducted throughout the country have
revealed a great variety of opinion concerning the relation between low
wages and immorality. There has been much confusion of thought on the
question. It is true, on the one hand, that injustice is done to
wage-earning girls and women of the country when the report is circulated