Scottish economist, William Smart, writes the solutions to a complicated question of why women's wages are less than that of a man in this influential work. Listing several generally plausible reasons, he explains that they are at best a half-truth taken singly and do not account for all the phenomena. Smart gives the notion that women's wage was customary and was decided when the world was poorer and the economy was strong. The work was written during the time when women mainly worked in the textiles trade of Great Britain. Unlike many economists of his time, he doesn't dismiss the question by regarding it as insignificant but gives insightful reasons and valuable solutions to the problem.