masters, or which are held to be of doubtful legitimacy on other
grounds. In the apprehension of the great conservative middle
class of Western civilisation the use of these various stimulants
is obnoxious to at least one, if not both, of these objections;
and it is a fact too significant to be passed over that it is
precisely among these middle classes of the Germanic culture,
with their strong surviving sense of the patriarchal proprieties,
that the women are to the greatest extent subject to a qualified
tabu on narcotics and alcoholic beverages. With many
qualifications -- with more qualifications as the patriarchal
tradition has gradually weakened -- the general rule is felt to
be right and binding that women should consume only for the
benefit of their masters. The objection of course presents itself
that expenditure on women's dress and household paraphernalia is
an obvious exception to this rule; but it will appear in the
sequel that this exception is much more obvious than substantial.
During the earlier stages of economic development,
consumption of goods without stint, especially consumption of the
better grades of goods, -- ideally all consumption in excess of
the subsistence minimum, -- pertains normally to the leisure
class. This restriction tends to disappear, at least formally,
after the later peaceable stage has been reached, with private
ownership of goods and an industrial system based on wage labour
or on the petty household economy. But during the earlier
quasi-peaceable stage, when so many of the traditions through
which the institution of a leisure class has affected the
economic life of later times were taking form and consistency,
this principle has had the force of a conventional law. It has
served as the norm to which consumption has tended to conform,
and any appreciable departure from it is to be regarded as an