She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.
Ver. 27. She looketh well to the ways of her household.] She hath an oar in every boat, an eye in every business; she spies and pries into her children's and servants' carriages, and exacts of them strict conversation and growth in godliness: she overlooks the whole family no otherwise than if she were in a watch tower; Speculatur itinera domus suae.
And eateth not the bread of idleness.] She earns it before she eats it. Aristotle a also commends φιλεργια, laboriousness, in a woman, and joins it with temperance and chastity, which are preserved by it. So is taciturnity and sober communication, for which she is commended in the former verse. For, as idleness is the seed of talkativeness, 1Ti 5:12 so painfulness is a singular help against it. Queen Catherine of Spain, wife to our Henry VIII, was not more busy in her calling than prudent in her carriage. She had been counselled to it by Ludovicus Vives, who came into England with her, and was master to her daughter, the Lady Mary. See Trapp on " Pro 31:19 "
a Arist. Rhet., lib. i.