[ddnb]

Interestingly enough this thought was what made western europe (but various other parts of the world had something similar) transition from the guild system to the centralised factory system, essentially laying the foundation for industrialisation.

Basically merchants realized there was a huge workforce outside the cities, families where wives and children had time left. So they purchased and place the worktools and resources with the individual families to later buy back the products they made and resell it in the markets. This was called the putting-out system if you want to look into it more.