Page:Marriage as a Trade.djvu/214

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MARRIAGE AS A TRADE

ing, arises, swallows his breakfast and goes forth to his shop, his factory or his office; and, his day's work done, returns to the suburban residence which it is the duty of his wife to look after, either personally or by superintendence of the labour of servants. His place of business and his place of rest and recreation are separate institutions, situated miles apart; the only connection between the two is the fact that he spends a certain portion of the day in each, and that one provides the money for the upkeep of the other. But his ancestor, if in the same line of business, had his place of money-making and his place of rest under the same roof, and both were comprehended in the meaning of the term "home." The primitive form of shop, though in gradual and inevitable process of extinction, is still plentiful enough in villages, in country towns and even in the by-streets of cities. It takes the shape of a ground-floor apartment in the proprietor's dwelling-house, provided with a counter upon which the customer raps, with a more or less patient persistence, with the object of arousing the attention of some member of the hitherto invisible household. Eventually,