oth, he will have her sit above in the parlour, and receive
visits, and drink tea, and entertain her neighbours, or take a coach and
go abroad; but as to the business, she shall not stoop to touch it; he
has apprentices and journeymen, and there is no need of it.

II. Some trades, indeed, are not proper for the women to meddle in, or
custom has made it so, that it would be ridiculous for the women to
appear in their shops; that is, such as linen and woollen drapers,
mercers, booksellers, goldsmiths, and all sorts of dealers by
commission, and the like--custom, I say, has made these trades so
effectually shut out the women, that, what with custom, and the women's
generally thinking it below them, we never, or rarely, see any women in
those shops or warehouses.

III. Or if the trade is proper, and the wife willing, the husband
declines it, and shuts her out--and this is the thing I complain of as
an unjustice upon the woman. But our tradesmen, forsooth, think it an
undervaluing to them and to their business to have their wives seen in
their shops--that is to say, that, because other trades do not admit
them, therefore they will not have their trades or shops thought less
masculine or less considerable than others, and they will not have their
wives be seen in their shops.

IV. But there are two sorts of husbands more who decline acquainting
their wives with their business; and those are, (1.) Those who are
unkind, haughty, and imperious, who will not trust their wives, because
they will not make them useful, that they may not value themselves upon
it, and make themselves, as it were, equal to their husbands. A weak,
foolish, and absurd suggestion! as if the wife were at all exalted by
it, which, indeed, is just the contrary, for the woman is rather humbled
and made a servant by it: or, (2.) The other sort are those who are
afraid their wives should be let into the grand secret of all--namely,
to know that they are bankrupt, and undone, and worth nothing.

All these considerations are foolish or fraudulent, and in every one of
them the husband is in the wrong--nay, they all argue very strongly for
the wife's being, in a due degree, let into the knowledge of their
business; but the last, indeed, especially that she may be put into a
posture to save him from ruin, if it be possible, or to carry on some
business without him, if he is forced to fail, and fly; as many have
been, when the creditors have encouraged the wife to