Expenses are of two sorts: necessary, for the repair of the house, the maintenance of the farm, the stocking of the shop; and unnecessary, for plate, house decoration, horses, grand clothes, entertainments.

On this topic Agnolo inveighs with severity against household parasites, bravi, and dissolute dependents.[5] A little further on he indulges in another diatribe against great nobles, _i signori_, from whom he would have his sons keep clear at any cost.[6] It is the animosity of the industrious burgher for the haughty, pleasure-loving, idle, careless man of blood and high estate.

In the bourgeois household described by Pandolfini no one can be indolent.

The men have to work outside and collect wealth, the women to stay at home and preserve it.

The character of a good housewife is sketched very minutely.