Les dones a les economies domèstiques preindustrials: treball, terra, dot i escreix a l’Alt Penedès del segle XVIII

Resumen

This article examines the role of women in the domestic economies of the Alt Penedès during the eighteenth century. In particular, it analyses the productive tasks that women carried out, which were fundamental for the maintenance of families, their relations with the ownership and the exploitation of land, the importance of the dowry and the escreix (maintenance payments) throughout their lives, and how the former evolved during the second half of the eighteenth century. In exploring each of these aspects we distinguish among single women, married women and widows, since marital status was the factor that most strongly conditioned what women could and could not do. Attention is also paid, in a cross-cutting way, to the legal framework that constrained women’s economic autonomy. Despite the silence of the sources, which is a direct consequence of the low regard for women’s work, its presumed subsidiary nature and the legal incapacity to which women were subjected, the examination of marriage capitulations, post mortem inventories, agrarian contracts, and texts from testimonials of the time allows us to see women being more active and more autonomous than is usually thought. The cultural and legal framework, as well as poverty, were important obstacles to overcome.