E-Books →Women, dowries and agency Marriage in fifteenth–century Valencia

Free Download Dana Wessell Lightfoot, "Women, dowries and agency: Marriage in fifteenth-century Valencia "
English | ISBN: 1526106655 | 2016 | 240 pages | EPUB | 1235 KB
This book examines labouring-status women in late medieval Valencia as they negotiated the fundamentally defining experience of their lives: marriage. Through the use of notarial records and civil court cases, it argues that the socio-economic and immigrant status of these women greatly enhanced their ability to exercise agency not only in choosing a spouse and gathering dotal assets, but also in controlling this property after they wed. Although the prevailing legal code in Valencia appeared to give wives little authority over these assets, court records demonstrate that they were still able to negotiate a measure of control. In these actions, labouring-status wives exercised agency by protecting their marital goods from harm, using legal statutes to their own advantage.