ABSTRACT
Economic life in early modern Europe, as today, consisted of a variety of types of activities. Women fit into guilds much more informally; the master's wife, daughters, and servants often worked alongside him and the journey men and apprentices or sold the goods made in the shop, and masters' widows ran shops after the death of their husbands, though they could not participate in running the guild. Most guilds in Europe limited full membership to men, but widows were often allowed to continue operating a workshop in a limited form. Domestic service is a much more common type of work, especially for young people of both sexes; many rural households hired servants, and between 15 and 30 percent of the population of most cities is made up of domestic servants. Until the eighteenth century, most people in early modern Europe had very few consumer goods, such as clothing and household items, and often could not afford new merchandise.
