The women's liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s was not a political and social reaction limited to conditions of that time, but rather a reaction against many years of social and legal constraints on women in America. Life for women, as for all people, in any country at any time is shaped by custom, law, and circumstance. In the colonial times and the early years of the United States, women could not own property, earn wages, or vote. The lives of women in rural areas focused on the domestic work that accompanied farming, on cooking, and on storing the annual harvest. Traditionally, women also tended to take charge of poultry and would take the eggs into the market to sell or exchange for goods they could not produce at home, like salt and coffee. In both rural and urban areas, women were responsible...