Female Solitude and Patrilineage: Unmarried Women and Widows During the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

Abstract

Until recently, little historical work has been done on the lives of women who lived apart from their kin. This article, examining family life in eighteenth and nineteenth- century Italy, focuses on such women, both those who never married and widows. Factors affecting the lives of these women, including prevailing patrilineal norms and changing legal rules regarding inheritance and the rights of women, are considered. The different situations of spinsters and widows are compared, and class differences are considered. Finally, situations in which women came to head households of their own are examined.