why do you think Marmee encourages the girls to try their experiment of not working for a week.

Marmee a great mother......... rather than listen to the girls complain about the extra work they have to do (everyone has to pull together when their father is away), she allows them their NO WORK experiment. The conclusion of the experiment of course....... chaos overides organization.

The reason she encourages the girls is that she knows they're going to learn a lesson. She even gives Hannah (the household help) a day off to really speed things up. In the end, the girls learn exactly what Marmee intended- it's a lot easier to just help out with a few duties from the very beginning than to sort it all out later.....