In the following questions, read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.

During the Victorian period men and women’s roles became more sharply defined than at any time in history. In earlier centuries it had been usual for women to work alongside husbands and brothers in the family business. Living ’over the shops’ made it easier for women to help out by serving customers or keeping accounts while also attending to their domestic duties. As the 19th century progressed men increasingly commuted to their place of work- the factory, shop or office, wives, daughters and sisters were left at home all day to oversee the domestic duties that were increasingly carried out by servants. From the 1830s, women started to adopt the crinoline, a huge bellshaped skirt that made it virtually impossible to clean a grate or sweep the stairs without tumbling over. The two sexes now inhabited what Victorians thought of as ’separate spheres’, only coming together at breakfast and again at dinner.

Complete the sentence. Living _________ made it easy for women to help out by serving customers or keeping accounts while also attending to their domestic duties.