Las mujeres "solas" en la sociedad semi-urbana gallega del siglo XVIII

Abstract

In pre-industrial Galicia celibacy and widowhood had always been more frequent among women than men and so the households headed by women were numerous. This article focuses on the spinters and the widows of four small towns of West-Galicia during the eighteenth century, in order to examine the extent and the implications of the female surplus, and the structure of the households headed by such women. Finally, we inquire about what women alone did for a living, and as result the traditional sectors of female work, poorly remunerated and segregated by sex, appeared as the answer.