“The young weaver just out of his apprenticeship is perhaps as well able to earn as he will be at any future period setting aside the domestic comforts incidental to the married state, his pecuniary condition is in the first instance improved by uniting himself with a woman capable of earning perhaps nearly as much as himself, and performing for him various offices involving an actual pecuniary saving. A married man with an income, the result of the earnings of himself and wife of 20s. will enjoy more substantial comfort in every way than he alone would enjoy with an income of 15s. a week. This alone is an inducement to early marriage. In obedience to this primary inducement the weaver almost invariably marries soon after he is out of his apprenticeship. But the improvement of comfort which marriage brings is of short duration;.... About the tenth year the labour of the eldest child becomes available.... Many men have depended on their wives & their children to support themselves by their own earnings, independent of his wages. The wives and children consequently took to the loom, or sought work in the factories; and now that there is little or no work in the district, the evil is felt, and the husband is obliged to maintain them out of his wages.” Footnote 204: _Hist. MSS. Com. Var. Coll._, Vol. I., p. 135, _Wilts. Q.S. Rec._, 1657. It was not however the uncertain part they played in the processes of weaving, burling or carding, which constituted the importance of the woollen trade in regard to women’s industrial position. Their employment in these directions was insignificant compared with the unceasing and never satisfied demand which the production of yarn made upon their labour. It is impossible to give any estimate of the quantity of wool spun for domestic purposes. That this was considerable is shown by a recommendation from the Commission appointed to enquire into the decay of the Cloth Trade in 1622, who advise “that huswyves may not make cloth to sell agayne, but for the provision of themselves and their famylie that the clothiers and Drapers be not dis-coraged.”[205] Footnote 205: _Report of Commission of Decay of Clothing Trade_, 1622, Stowe, 554, fo. 48b. The housewife span both wool and flax for domestic use, but this aspect of her industry will be considered more fully in connection with the linen trade, attention here being concentrated on the condition of the spinsters in the woollen trade. Their organization varied widely in different parts of the country. Sometimes the spinster bought the wool, span it, and then sold the yarn, thus securing all the profit of the transaction for herself. In other cases she was supplied with the wool by the clothier, or a “market spinner” and only received piece wages for her labour. The system in vogue was partly decided by the custom of the locality, but there was everywhere a tendency to substitute the latter for the former method.