A sociological and economic study tracing how industrial change altered women's work, household organization, and social status from primitive communities through modern social strata. It contrasts competing theories of sexual origins, documents shifts from home-based production to market labor, and surveys effects across the working poor, middle classes, and women of leisure. The analysis links economic transformation to changes in marriage patterns, fertility, and divorce rates, and considers impacts on political rights and professional households, arguing that technological and labor-market forces produced divergent gendered outcomes by class and suggesting directions for public policy and further study.