] Does any one have any idea why female servants would be so much more inconstant?

Presumably there was a high turnover in female staff as house maids,cooks and nurses left service to get married or have children. I think cottage industries provided these women with another form of paid work;straw-plaiting (for the hat and bonnet trade),button making and handloom weaving. In addition to the unpaid burden of managing home; cleaning, cooking, sewing ;nursing and bringing up the children-it would have been very difficult for village women to return to domestic service.