ABSTRACT
The importance of women to the economy of the nation as well as of the family was formally recognized as far back as medieval times when the Statute of Labourers of 1349 imposed upon women as upon men the obligation of working for the local magnate when required. The rates of pay which women could command were, however, pitched low enough to make full-time employment for women unattractive even where it was available. It has been argued that the fact that women throughout the centuries have in agriculture been paid less than men somehow constitutes a justification for the continuation of this principle in modern industrial society. The substance of this assumption is to be found in the following sort of evidence.
