Exceptional women: Female merchants and working women in Italy in the early modern period

Abstract

The chapter examines the juridical construction of working woman in Italian cities during the medieval to modern period. In fact, the world of work and production had been generally thought by medieval and early modern jurists to be a sphere best left to self-regulation by the interested parties, an autonomous field, if not quite extraneous to the grand systems of Roman and canon law. But many regulatory and legal sources demonstrate the relevance of merchant and working women in the economic system. This sources concern three items, regarding female work and family roles: female membership and activities in the Italian guilds; women’s property and capability to act; the relationship between dowry and salary. In any case, normative systems and legal opinions recognize a very different and exceptional status to those women who are recognized as “merchants”.