The Marital Economy in Scandinavia and Britain 1400-1900 (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Marital Economy in Scandinavia and Britain 1400-1900 Sally Parkin Ågren, Maria and Amy Louise Erickson, eds, The Marital Economy in Scandinavia and Britain 1400-1900 (Women and Gender in the Early Modern World), Aldershot, Ashgate, 2005; cloth; pp. xiii, 228; 3 b/w illustrations; RRP £55; ISBN 0754637816. A cross-cultural examination of the marital partnership as a fundamental economic relationship, this excellent work is divided into three sections with studies from England, Scotland, Wales, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway and Iceland. The research is original and represents a significant contribution to our understanding of the economic, social and legal history of marital partnerships in northern Europe. Amy Louise Erickson's introduction establishes the framework within which all the essays are contextualized: marital relationships were not only a primary social and legal institution in the medieval and Early Modern period, but were also the fundamental level of economic activity because the marriage established the household. The 'marital economy' encompasses the establishing, maintaining and dissolving of the marriage partnership between the spouses, their relatives and friends, over the lifetime of the marriage. Organized according to the three economic stages of the marital life-cycle – forming the partnership, managing the partnership, and dissolving the partnership – the essays explore commonalities and distinctive cultural differences, establishing the marital economy for the entire region. [End Page 185] Part I, Forming the Partnership, explores the creation of the marital economy. Hanne Marie Johansen shows that the Norwegian courts were the most liberal in the interpretation of the marriage contract. Sexual intercourse constituted a promise of marriage in the sixteenth century, the courts awarding the majority of female claimants in spousal cases, particularly pregnant women, financial compensation to maintain the child and to increase the woman's marriage prospects. By the seventeenth century, however, this had changed and the woman had to produce a written promise of marriage to lodge a complaint in court, eventuating in the disappearance of spousal court cases. Catherine Frances examines the process of marriage formation in the county of Cheshire from 1570 to 1670. Testimony in spousal cases emphasizes the potent force which families and friends represented as protectors and bestowers of property to marrying couples. The marital economy in Sweden differed, as Gudrun Andersson shows. Nordic countries legally prescribed inheritance as property: property which parents had inherited had to be divided among children, and only property which parents acquired through their own labour could be distributed according to parental wills. Nordic parents could not disinherit a child without a legal reason and the records indicate that equal division generally occurred either during the parent's lifetime or upon their death. Comparing three rural areas of Finland, Anu Pylkkänen shows that daughters rarely gained even a legal half-share of their inheritance. Despite the cultural recognition of the importance of women's labour and the cultural significance of their maintenance value, women were devalued when family resources were divided. Wealthier families did distribute wealth slightly more equitably but it was Swedish bridegrooms whose contribution to the marital economy was the greatest. Jane Whittle cites the importance of adolescent service in the marital economy and the significant contribution which wealth accumulated through saved wages could bring to a marriage. When English servant women married, the future prosperity of the marital economy for such women was increased because of the skills they acquired whilst in service. Part II, Managing the Partnership, shows a distinct attitudinal variation between England and other countries concerning the wife's property. Both in continental Europe and Nordic countries, the marital estate was made of up three distinct parts, the husband's inherited property, the wife's inherited property and the common property they acquired during the marriage. The husband could manage the wife's property but could not own it whereas, in England, the husband owned the wife's property other than her freehold or copyright land, which he managed. [End Page 186] Authority within the household is the theme explored by Hilde Sandvik. In Early Modern Norway, most economic functions took place within the household and, despite Norwegian law pertaining to the authority of the husband over a wife's property, court cases provide...