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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: of her desires or sorrows. Then, in place of the active labouring woman,
upholding society by her toil, has come the effete wife, concubine, or
prostitute, clad in fine raiment, the work of others' fingers; fed on
luxurious viands, the result of others' toil, waited on and tended by the
labour of others. The need for her physical labour having gone, and mental
industry not having taken its place, she bedecked and scented her person,
or had it bedecked and scented for her, she lay upon her sofa, or drove or
was carried out in her vehicle, and, loaded with jewels, she sought by
dissipations and amusements to fill up the inordinate blank left by the
lack of productive activity. And as the hand whitened and frame softened,
till, at last, the very duties of motherhood, which were all the
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