Family making and family breaking: Widows in early modern France

This dissertation examines the role of widows in Old Regime France, in particular the widows of skilled craft masters who were members of Paris' guild system. At her husband's death, the widow acquired formal legal rights, and a measure of authority, not available to other women. She could direct family strategies, manage assets, and make decisions usually reserved for the male head of the household. In addition, the widow of a guild master enjoyed the right to participate in her husband's trade, and could continue to operate the family business after his death.; The chapters of this dissertation explore several trajectories a widow's life could follow. The first section explains the Parisian common law system, and provides the frame for examining practice. Chapters two and three look at the role of the family in the artisinal shop. A wife's partnership with her husband provided her with the expertise she would need to continue practicing a trade after his death. If the widow decided to continue the family enterprise, she could choose from a number of business strategies. They ranged from abandoning the business, to running it alone or with a partner, to ceding it to another master.; Chapters four and five consider the path a widow might take if she decided to abandon her family enterprise. The more sanguine possibility was that the widow would remarry and once again entrust her well-being to her husband. The other possibility was that she would fall into poverty, a fate difficult to escape for many women alone. Chapter six considers representations of widows in contemporary literature, from religious writings to novels of the day. It discovers the great anxiety the widow generated in her society.; The dissertation is the first full length study of widows in early modern France. It argues that these women, while subject to constraints, could prosper by themselves. It also expands our understanding of women's roles in Parisian guilds.