working life of women seventeenth century - School of Economics ...

I 56 CRAFTS AND TRADES CRAFTS AND TRADESIt must be remembered that, except those who areclassed as servants, all grown-up women were eithermarried or widows. It was quite usual for a marriedwoman to carry on a separate business from herhusband as sole merchant, but it was still more customaryfor her to share in his enterprise, and only afterhis death for the whole burden to fall upon hershoulders. How natural it was for a woman to regardherself as her husband's partner will be seen whenthe conditions of family industry are considered.Before the encroachments of capitalisnl the membersof the Craft Gilds were masters, not of other men,but of their craft. The workshop was part of thehome, and in it, the master, who in the course of along apprenticeship had acquired the technical masteryof his trade, worked with his apprentices, one or twojourneymen and his wife and children. The numberof jouineymen and apprentices was strictly limitedby the Gild rules ; the men did not expect to remainpermanently in the position of wage-earners, buthoped in course of time to marry and establish themselvesas masters in their craft. Apart from theapprentices and journeymen no labour might beemployed, except that of the master's wife and children;but there are in every trade processes which do notrequire a long technical training for their performance,and thus the assistance of the mistress became importantto her husband, whether she was skilled inthe tiade or not, for the work if not done by hermust fall upon him. Sometimes her part was manual,but more often she appears to have taken charge ofthe financial side of the business, and is seen in therole of salesman, receiving payments for which herreceipt was always accepted as valid, or even actingas buyer. In either case her services were so essentialto the business that she usually engaged a servantfor household matters, and was thus freed from theroutine of domestic drudgery. Defoe, writing inthe first decades of the eighteenth century, notes thatwomen servants are now so scarce that from thirtyand forty shillings a Year, their Wages are increasedof late to six, seven and eight pounds per Annum,and upwards. . . . an ordinary Tradesman cannotwell keep one ; but his Wife, who might be usefulin his Shop, or Business, must do the Drudgery ofHousehold Affairs ; And all this, because ourServant Wenches are so puff'd up with Pridenow-a-Days that they never think they go fineenough."'The position of a married woman in the tradesmanclass was far removed from that of her husband'sdomestic servant. She was in very truth mistress ofthe household in that which related to trade as well asin domestic matters, and the more menial domesticduties were performed by young unmarried personsof either sex. To quote Defoe again, " it is butfew Years ago, and in the Memory of many now living,that all the Apprentices of the Shop-keepers and Ware-house-keepers. . . . submitted to the most servileEmployments of the Families in which they serv'd ;such as the young Gentry, their Successors in thesame Station, scorn so much as the Name of now;such as cleanzng their Masters' Shoes, bringing Waterinto the Houses from the Conduits in the Street,which they carried on their Shoulders in long Vesselscall'd Tankards ; also waiting at Table, . . . . buttheir Masters are oblig'd to keep Porters or Footmento wait upon the apprentices."'The rules of the early Gilds furnish abundantevidence that women then took an active part intheir husbands's trades ; thus in I 297 the Craft ofFullers at Lincoln ordered that " none [of the craft]shall work at the wooden bar with a woman, unlessl Defoe, Everybody's Busrncss ;S IVo-Body's Buszness, p. 6, 1725a Defoe, Behavronr of Servants, p. 12,. 1724.