The distinction of sex gave rise to a difference of economic function, and the rudimentary division of tasks thus evolved coincided with the first phase of economic evolution, - the phase which we have called the home or family economy. Yet this division of labour is far from corresponding to the modern conception of the peculiar province of the two sexes, viz. the idea that man should perform the hard work and woman the household duties. Cura agrorum feminis delegata – Tacitus
2. The second phase – that of corporations or guilds – coincided with a more detailed division of labour, viz., the rise of separate trades.
3. In the third phase, that of the workshop and domestic manufacturing, the division of labour attains the highest degree of perfection.
4. In the next phase, - that of factories, - the division of labor seems almost to have retrograded;; or rather, not men but machines do the specializing.
5. Finally, there is beyond this another form of the division of labour, which may be called international division of labour, because it has grown up under the influence of the development of international transportation and exchange.
