more likely a usage error, if error at all:

housewife 3. Usually ("hVzIf). A pocket-case for needles, pins, thread, scissors, etc. (In this sense still often spelt huswife, hussive.)
1749 P. Skelton Deism Revealed viii. (T.), Women+spending their time in knotting, or making an housewife. 1762 Sterne Tr. Shandy V. xvi, To bring whatever he had to say, into so small a compass, that+it might be rolled up in my mother's housewife. 1768 I Sent. Journ. (1775) I. 112 (Temptation) [She] without saying a word, took out her little hussive, threaded a small needle, and sewed it up. 1851 D. Jerrold St. Giles xv. 158 He placed a little silken huswife in her trembling hand. 1868 Holme Lee B. Godfrey x. 54 She drew a thread of silk from the housewife. 1871 Carlyle in Mrs. C.'s Lett. I. 161 She tried anxiously all her ‘hussives’, boxes, drawers.


(OED2)