'Power of thirds': the material lives of widows Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 1816-1826
Date
1991
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
This paper explores the relationship between widows and property in the early nineteenth century through the experiences of 136 women widowed between 1816-1826. Using the process of limited prosopography, diverse documents including wills, dowers, inventories, administration and guardian accounts, court records, land deeds, pauper records, street directories, tax lists, and church records were combined to construct biographies of widows from different economic and racial groups. ☐ Property issues -- the central link in this paper -- also form the structural divisions. Narratives concerning the material lives of widows are arranged into chapters concerning inheritance of property; court arguments over property; mortgages, sales, and purchases of property; and, finally, a discussion of the kind of property widows owned at the time of their deaths. ☐ This paper demonstrates that although there was no common experience of widowhood, widows held a carefully defined place in society. A widow's subsistence was nearly always secondary to the concerns of creditors. If their husband died in debt, a widow's dower could be suspended to pay the debt and a judge could alter her allotment of personal estate. Aside from teaching or running a shop, widows generated incomes through holding mortgages, buying and selling real estate, and using their furniture or land as collateral on loans. ☐ Widows' wills suggest that they operated under a distinctly different value system than men. Specific bequests to individuals, usually females, figure largely in their wills. Inventories reveal that widows often retained only luxury items and bank stock at the end of their life. ☐ Studying widows' lives through property relations reveals that women had a distinct relationship to property. In general, women were more reliant and connected to personal property. Their control over real" estate was usually limited by lifetime interest, which only allowed them the right to occupy or rent land. As this study shows, widowhood is a time when women surface in the legal, record and in studying their experience, much can be gleaned about the place of women in society.