ABSTRACT
The economic, legal and customary form of the middle-class enterprise has been surveyed. It had its origins in a combination of landed estate practice and merchant commercial experience, but it was middle-class men who built on these origins, expanding and moulding devices such as the trust to their purposes and needs. Their calling to do so was not in doubt, for their identity depended on their ability to operate as economic agents. To become adult men within their own terms they must provide a livelihood which made possible a domestic establishment where they and their dependants could live a rational and morally sanctioned life.
