Thus it may be presumed that apprenticeship to a brother or sister of the Carpenters’ Company conferred the right of freedom upon any girls who chose to avail themselves of the privilege, even when the trade actually learnt was not that of carpentry. Amongst the girl apprentices only one other was directly bound to a woman, namely “Elizabetha filia Hester Eitchus ux. Geo. Eitchus nuper Civi et Carpentar. pon se dict Hester matri pro septem ann a dat etc.”[363] Although Hester Eitchus is here called “uxor” she must really have been a widow, for her name would not have appeared alone on the indenture during her husband’s lifetime; boy apprentices had previously been bound to him, and no doubt as in the other cases husband and wife had been prosecuting their several trades simultaneously, the wife retaining her membership in the Carpenters’ Company when left a widow. An independent business must have been very necessary for the wife in cases where the husband worked for wages, and not on his own account, for in 1563 carpenter’s wages were fixed “be my lorde mayors commandement ... yf they dyd fynde themselves meat and drynke at xiiijᵈ the day and their servants xijᵈ. Itm otherwises the sayd carpynters to have viijᵈ the day wayges meat & drynke & their servants vjᵈ meat & drynke.”[364] These wages would have been inadequate for the maintenance of a family in London, and therefore unless the carpenter was in a position to employ apprentices and enter into contracts, in which case he could find employment also for his wife, she must have traded in some way on her own account. Footnote 363: _Ibid._ Vol. I., _App. Entry Book_, p. 159, Feb. 3, 1679. Footnote 364: _Records of the Worshipful Company of Carpenters_, Vol. III., p. 75, _Court Book_.