Better to relax

A young woman with her feet apart stands in front of a toothless old man with a prominent chin who is seated on a large sack. The young woman holds a ball of wool in her hands and rests it on her lap in a gesture that has clearly erotic connotations. Between the two, in the background, there is an old woman seated between them, holding a skein of yarn, which could be suggesting the relationship between the man and the young woman.

Ayala's manuscript explains this engraving as follows: "Women want more to lie down at the bribia, than to unravel skeins and work at home", while that in the Prado National Museum notes: "If the one who works is the one who enjoys the least, he is right, it is better to smell". The most detailed explanation is that of the Biblioteca Nacional; in the engraving it is interpreted in these words: "A vicious family is hardly subject to honest home occupations. The husband's beastly husband gets tangled up in the skein; the mother-in-law untangles it and the wife gets tired and shows in her gestures that it is more important for her to go to the rascal".

The content of this engraving is quite clear: it is a criticism of prostitution, to which many women resorted in order to make a living. The old woman in the centre of the composition weaves a link between the two, she is the one who has plotted the origin of this relationship. The young woman will agree to join the man despite his unpleasant appearance for purely economic reasons.