In the earlier phases of the predatory culture the only economic
differentiation is a broad distinction between an honourable
superior class made up of the able-bodied men on the one side,
and a base inferior class of labouring women on the other.
According to the ideal scheme of life in force at the time it is
the office of the men to consume what the women produce. Such
consumption as falls to the women is merely incidental to their
work; it is a means to their continued labour, and not a
consumption directed to their own comfort and fulness of life.
Unproductive consumption of goods is honourable, primarily as a
mark of prowess and a perquisite of human dignity; secondarily it
becomes substantially honourable to itself, especially the
consumption of the more desirable things. The consumption of
choice articles of food, and frequently also of rare articles of
adornment, becomes tabu to the women and children; and if there
is a base (servile) class of men, the tabu holds also for them.
With a further advance in culture this tabu may change into
simple custom of a more or less rigorous character; but whatever
be the theoretical basis of the distinction which is maintained,
whether it be a tabu or a larger conventionality, the features of
the conventional scheme of consumption do not change easily. When
the quasi-peaceable stage of industry is reached, with its
fundamental institution of chattel slavery, the general
principle, more or less rigorously applied, is that the base,
industrious class should consume only what may be necessary to
their subsistence. In the nature of things, luxuries and the
comforts of life belong to the leisure class. Under the tabu,
certain victuals, and more particularly certain beverages, are
strictly reserved for the use of the superior class.