Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Women and Men

[10] food, they do it for money. They are no longer under shelter; they are thrown out into the great, busy, bustling world; they make their own contract for wages, and collect these for themselves. They are as far as possible from the condition of perpetual tutelage which was, according to Sir Henry Maine, the recognized position of the Roman woman, following out more systematically the condition of her Greek sister. And this being the case, we must recognize the alteration. Our laws, our education, our social habits, must all adapt themselves to it.

It is a curious fact that our word “meretricious” is derived directly from the Latin word meretrix, meaning a woman of degraded character; and that this again was derived from the seemingly harmless word mereo, to earn money. The assumption was that there was no way in which money could be earned by a woman innocently; the mere earning implied moral disgrace. Not only is it now respectable for women to earn money, but they must usually leave home for the purpose. If they are to support themselves, they must be looked for everywhere but at home, and often in the very places where men most congregate. The shops most expressly devoted to the other sex-men's clothing-stores, for instance — may have women installed as book — keepers. Go into those great lives of men