Only unpaid labour force? Women's and girls' work and property in family business in early modern Italy

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the nature of the women's contribution in family businesses in eighteenth-century Turin. Specifically, it discusses the reliability of the notion of unpaid work; it suggests that the latter is a too ambiguous concept and that some kind of distinction which clarifies the role played by each family member should be introduced. Economic and labour relationships between the partners or between the head of the household and other women of the family network were complicated by the presence of the female's personal property, and especially by the dowry. Married women invested in the family business their dowry or, alternatively, they used it in order to set up and run an independent economic activity or to buy a set of tools that enabled them to work autonomously. Widows (mothers or mothers-in-law) did the same. Women therefore were workers and owners at the same time. Their economic contribution to the household was based on an intricate mixture of physical work and property, and precisely for this reason they cannot be considered as an unpaid labour force. Finally, the paper shows that property gave the women the bargaining power necessary to negotiate their position in the household or to obtain some kind of help or support.

Keywords::

• Unpaid Work
• Women Work
• Family Business
• Dowry
• Bargaining Power

Notes

^1. In recent years, many scholars employed the notion of unpaid work; some of them emphasised unpaid work such as various caregivers’ tasks, domestic work, childrearing and care given to ill and weak members of the family (Addabbo, Arrizabalaga, Borderías, & Owens, 2010). Other research refers mostly to work performed by women and other family members in the family business (Philipps, 2008).

^2. Archivio di Stato di Torino (AST), I sez., Commercio, II add., Magistrato del Consolato, mazzo 2, Volume contente li nomi, cognomi e patria de’ mastri e padroni e de' loro rispettivi lavoranti ed apprendizzi delli arti e mestieri, 1792.

^3. All the examples have been taken from the census of Turinese workshops carried out in 1792.

^4. AST, sez. riun., Notai di Torino, vol. 2774, ff. 297r–302v.

^5.Ibid.,Insinuazione di Torino, a. 1748, l. 4, ff. 423r–424r.

^6. On Turin and Piedmont dowry system see: (Pene Vidari, 1980–81; 1983). For Italy, among the abundant literature on the topic, see for example: (Klapisch-Zuber, 1990); (Groppi, 1996); (Calvi & Chabot, 1998); (Fubini Leuzzi, 1999); (Bellavitis, 2008).

^7. I studied the dowry system and the alienation of dowry in eighteenth-century Turin in chapters 2 and 3 of my book (Zucca Micheletto, 2014).

^8. AST, sez. riun., Notai di Torino, vol. 2756, f. 527r.

^9.Ibid., vol. 2777, ff. 290r–294r.

^10.Ibid., vol. 2752, ff. 509r–514v.

^11.Ibid., vol. 2778, ff. 58r–63r.

^12.Ibid., vol. 2774, f. 409r–v.

^13. Studies about widowhood are numerous. For Italy see: (Palazzi, 1997); (Bellavitis, 2008). For other European countries: (Fauve-Chamoux, 1998); (Cavallo & Warner, 1999); (Beauvalet-Boutouyrie, 2001); (Pellegrin & Winn, 2003); (Lanza, 2009).

^14. AST, sez. riun., Insinuazione di Torino, a. 1761, l. 2, ff. 881r–894v.

^15.Ibid., a. 1763, l. 5, ff. 47r–48v.

^16.Ibid.

^17. On independent business of unmarried women see: (Sharpe, 1999).

^18. Number of couples for whom the job of the husband and of the wife is known.

^19. See footnote 18.

^20. AST, sez. riun., Insinuazione di Torino, a. 1765, l. 3, 1167r–1168v.

^21.Ibid., a. 1774, l. 4, ff. 1459r–1460v.

^22.Ibid., Consolato di Commercio, Registro dei Taffetieri, vol. 66, f.f. n.n.

^23.Ibid., vol. 67, ff. 155r–159v.

^24.Ibid., ff. 160r–161r.

^25.Ibid., ff. 107r–110v.

^26.Ibid., ff. 211r–216r.

^27.Ibid., vol. 66, f.f. n.n.

^28.Ibid.

^29.Ibid., vol. 67, ff. 85r–91v.

^30.Ibid., vol. 66, ff. n.n.

^31.Ibid.

^32.Ibid., vol. 67, ff. 107r–110v.

^33. Archivio Storico del Comune di Torino (ASCT), Ospedale di Carità, cat. VI, Libri delle informazioni per i ricoveri, vol. 47, f. 844.

^34.Ibid., vol. 40, f. 33.

^35. On female apprenticeship in pre-industrial Europe see: (Hanawalt, 1993); (Krausman Ben-Amos, 1994); (Béghin, 1996); (Bellavitis, 2006a, 2006b); (Crowston, 2005); (Erickson, 2011); (Martinat, 2011). For Turin see: (Cavallo, 2006).

^36. AST, sez. riun., Consolato di Commercio, Registro dei Taffetieri, vol. 66, ff. n.n.

^37.Ibid.

^38.Ibid., Insinuazione di Torino, a. 1761, l. 8, ff. 1264v–1266r.

^39.Ibid., a. 1764, l. 4, ff. 1353r–v.

^40.Ibid., Consolato di Commercio, Bottonaj, vol. 6, ff. n. n.

^41.Ibid., Insinuazione di Torino, a. 1770, l. 3, ff. 39r–44v.