In India, Women Work to Preserve The Craft of Lace:
India’s lacemaking tradition started as a way to help young women earn a living, when nuns from Europe began arriving in India as missionaries. Lace had long been a form of sustenance for women of the church and charity institutions: It was wholesome toil at a time when women were discouraged from working outside the home. There were no costly materials involved — just thread, bobbins and needles. Moreover, making lace requires extremely hygienic conditions; dirt or dust is ruinous. So the occupation was thought to promote cleanliness, virtue and good health.The nuns in India taught poor women — though only unmarried or widowed ones — to make lace and other fine embroideries that would be shipped overseas. Even as the popularity of lace declined throughout the 20th century, lacemaking continued to provide women with a livelihood in rural pockets of India.
This of course created an entrepreneurial opportunity: hire married women.