Survival strategies of widows and their families in early modern Holland, c. 1580–1750

Abstract

This article analyses the impact of widowhood upon women in early modern urban society in Holland. Widows were able to maintain their households and to minimize the discontinuity with their lives when married. A remarkably egalitarian inheritance and marital property law, access to a broad range of occupations, a privileged status, an extended poor relief system, institutionalised mutual assistance and new forms of financial provisions for widows enabled widows to survive after the loss of an adult male breadwinner. However, legal rights, social provisions and economic opportunities available to women in the Dutch Golden Age and thereafter, could not prevent social polarization after women lost their spouse.

Keywords:

• Widows
• Survival strategies
• Early modern period
• Holland

Notes

1 This article is based on my PhD dissertation Schmidt (2001). Overleven na de dood. Weduwen in Leiden in de Gouden Eeuw. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker.

2 Regionaal Archief Leiden (hereafter RAL), Stadsarchief II (hereafter SAII), 66, 5-3-1646.

3 One guilder is 20 stuivers. Average annual family incomes could have stood a bit above 300 guilders. Around 1650, a carpenter could earn a daily wage of 24 stuivers in the summer and 18 stuivers in the winter and worked 275-300 days per year. (De Vries & Van der Woude, 1997, p. 562; Noordegraaf, 1980, pp. 21, 38).

4 As far as I am aware of, there is no information on gender differences in life expectancy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries cities in Holland. However, for the years 1827–1828 and 1840–1851 the average life expectancy at birth in the Netherlands was estimated at 36.6 years for men and 39.5 years for women. (Van Poppel, Deerenberg, Wolleswinkel-Van den Bosch, & Ekamper, 2005, p. 14).

5 This estimation is based on figures of Jan van Hout, secretary of Leiden from 1564-1609, who declared that almost 6000 inhabitants died from starvation or the plague (See Blok, 1916, p. 1).

6 RAL, SAII 4021-4022.

7 Database Volkstelling 1748. This register was published on the internet at http://esf.niwi.knaw.nl/esf1999/projects/kohier (consulted in 2004). The original register can be found in the municipal archive of Leiden, SAII 4129-4137 (1748).

8 Dutch: ‘arm’, ‘arm volck’, ‘desen genieten van den armen, ‘leeft van de huissitten’. (Schmidt, 2001, p. 172).

9 When we include widows who held property together with their children, this proportion increases to 25.2%.

10 According to Oldewelt one had to pay 0.5% of the income after it was multiplied by ten. The amounts to be paid were fixed to a limited number. The assessments were either 1 penning (fl 0.003), 6 penning (fl 0.02), 1 stuiver (fl 0.05) 2 stuivers, 3 stuivers and so on. The assessment of 1 stuiver represents an annual income between 365 and 730 guilders. (Oldewelt, 1950, p.81; Peltjes, 1995, p.11.)

11 This tax had to be paid by persons who had income from work. Large merchants [‘kooplieden’] and rentiers were exempted. Although we do not know what the exact threshold for this tax was, we do know that it was not particularly high (Oldewelt, 1950, pp. 80–87).

12 These people were not referred to as ‘boarders’ or ‘lodgers’. Their relation to the household head remains often unclear. However, they were registered together with the widowed household head as one ‘unit’ in the list.

13 From research on the nineteenth century cities of Breda and Gouda we know that the age of children was also a crucial factor for the remarriage rates of widows and widowers. The presence of children over 12 years old depressed the chances of remarriage (Van Poppel, 1992, pp. 368-369).

14 As the occupations of brides were not recorded, we can only use the occupational information on grooms as an indicator.