No traces can be found of any organisation existing in the skilled women’s trades, such as upholstery, millinery, mantua-making, but a Gild existed among the women who sorted and packed wool at Southampton. A Sisterhood consisting of twelve women of good and honest demeanour was formed there as a company to serve the merchants in the occupation of covering pokes or baloes [bales]. Two of the sisters acted as wardens. In 1554 a court was held to adjudicate on the irregular attendance of some of the sisters. The names of two wardens and eleven sisters are given; no one who was absent from her duties for more than three months was permitted to return to the Sisterhood without the Mayor’s licence. “Item, yᵗ is ordered by the sayde Maior and his bretherne that all suche as shall be nomynated and appoynted to be of the systeryd shall make a brekefaste at their entrye for a knowlege and shal bestowe at the least xxᵈ or ijˢ, or more as they lyste.”[423] Footnote 423: Davies. (J. S.) _Hist. of Southampton_, p. 279. Possibly when more records of the Gilds and Companies have been published in a complete form, some of the gaps which are left in this account of the position of women in the skilled and semi-skilled trades may be filled in; but the extent to which married women were engaged in them must always remain largely a matter of conjecture, and unfortunately it is precisely this point which is most interesting to the sociologist. Practically all adult women were married, and the character of the productive work which an economic organisation allots to married women and the conditions of their labour decide very largely the position of the mother in society, and therefore, ultimately, the fate of her children. The fragmentary evidence which has been examined shows that, while the system of family industry lasted, it was so usual in the skilled and semi-skilled trades for women to share in the business life of their husbands that they were regarded as partners. Though the wife had rarely, if ever, served an apprenticeship to his trade, there were many branches in which her assistance was of great value, and husband and wife naturally divided the industry between them in the way which was most advantageous to the family, while unmarried servants, either men or women, performed the domestic drudgery. As capitalistic organisation developed, many avenues of industry were, however, gradually closed to married women. The masters no longer depended upon the assistance of their wives, while the journeyman’s position became very similar to that of the modern artisan; he was employed on the premises of his master, and thus, though his association with his fellows gave him opportunity for combination, his wife and daughters, who remained at home, did not share in the improvements which he effected in his own economic position. The alternatives before the women of this class were either to withdraw altogether from productive