Reading ch.5, I find it interesting how AV points out how for decades, historians have unquestioningly believed in "the shallow selfishness of female desire" (p.162) - that women must buy things mainly because they envy others and want to keep up with the Joneses.

AV's argument makes sense to me that "having the same consumer items as the Joneses does not necessarily involve beating them, since a shared material culture is often a factor in social solidarity and cohesion"(p.163). It would explain why, as she points out on p.161, almost anyone who was anyone in the North-West...bought his...dining-room furniture from the same workshop, that of the rising firm of Gillows of Lancaster".