Assessing female wealth in nineteenth century Milan, Italy

Abstract

This article adds to the debate about women’s relations with business, finance and accounting by discussing the economic and social position of women in Milan, Italy during the industrialization era. The work utilizes the act of succession (probate records), a source extensively used in the Anglophone literature, and provides detailed information about the amount, distribution and concentration of female (and male) property. The findings are discussed in the light of many similar studies carried out in Common law countries, and the way the “egalitarian” legal context of a Roman law country affected women’s position as wealth holders is commented upon. The legal right to property was important, but not sufficient to grant Italian women equal access to it. This examination of inheritance practices shows that culture, custom and, most of all, the male dominated Catholic religion curbed women’s ability to accumulate wealth.