e the knowledge of their husbands' business, and act as
if they were ashamed of being tradesmen's wives, and never intended to
be tradesmen's widows.

If this chosen ignorance of theirs comes some time or other to be their
loss, and they find the disadvantage of it too late, they may read their
fault in their punishment, and wish too late they had acted the humbler
part, and not thought it below them to inform themselves of what it is
so much their interest to know. This pride is, indeed, the great
misfortune of tradesmen's wives; for, as they lived as if they were
above being owned for the tradesman's wife, so, when he dies, they live
to be the shame of the tradesman's widow. They knew nothing how he got
his estate when he was alive, and they know nothing where to find it
when he is dead. This drives them into the hands of lawyers, attorneys,
and solicitors, to get in their effects; who, when they have got it,
often run away with it, and leave the poor widow in a more disconsolate
and perplexed condition than she was in before.

It is true, indeed, that this is the women's fault in one respect, and
too often it is so in many, since the common spirit is, as I observed,
so much above the tradesman's condition; but since it is not so with
every body, let me state the case a little for the use of those who
still have ther senses about them; and whose pride is not got so much
above their reason, as to let them choose to be tradesmen's beggars,
rather than tradesmen's widows.

When the tradesman dies, it is to be expected that what estate or
effects he leaves, is, generally speaking, dispersed about in many
hands; his widow, if she is left executrix, has the trouble of getting
things together as well as she can; if she is not left executrix, she
has not the trouble indeed, but then it is looked upon that she is
dishonoured in not having the trust; when she comes to look into her
affairs, she is more or less perplexed and embarrassed, as she has not
or has acquainted herself, or been made acquainted, with her husband's
affairs in his lifetime.

If she has been one of those gay delicate ladies, that valuing herself
upon her being a gentlewoman, and that thought it a step below herself,
when she married this mechanic thing called a tradesman, and
consequently scorned to come near his shop, or warehouse, and by
consequence acquainting herself with any of his affairs,[35] or so much
as where his effects lay, which are to be h