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Mistress or maid: the structure of women's work in Sweden, 1550–1800

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2017

JONAS LINDSTRÖM ,
KARIN HASSAN JANSSON ,
ROSEMARIE FIEBRANZ ,
BENNY JACOBSSON  and
MARIA ÅGREN
JONAS LINDSTRÖM
Affiliation:
Uppsala University.
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Abstract

Based on the verb-oriented method and a unique collection of observations from court records, this article shows that both men and women did almost all categories of work in early modern Sweden. On the level of concrete tasks, however, there was both difference and similarity between the genders. Marital status exerted a strong influence on women's sustenance activities, creating a clear distinction between unmarried and ever-married women. These patterns were probably the effect of a labour legislation that forced young people without independent means to offer their bodies and time to masters and mistresses.

Maîtresse ou servante: la structure du travail des femmes en suède, 1550–1800

Adoptant une méthode d'analyse lexicale ‘orientée vers le verbe’, les auteurs étudient une riche collection d'observations provenant d'archives judiciaires. L'article montre qu'en Suède, à l’époque moderne, hommes et femmes ont travaillé dans presque toutes les catégories d'activité. Pour ce qui est des tâches pratiques, cependant, il y avait à la fois différence et similitude entre les sexes. Pour les femmes, une distinction claire apparaît entre femmes célibataires et femmes ayant été un jour mariées : leur état civil exerçait une forte influence sur les activités permettant aux femmes de subsister. Ces modèles étaient probablement l'effet d'une législation du travail qui obligeait les jeunes gens sans fortune individuelle à proposer de mettre leur personne et leur temps à la disposition de maîtres et maîtresses.

Dienstherrin oder dienstmagd: die struktur der frauenarbeit in schweden, 1550–1800

Auf der Grundlage einer einzigartigen Sammlung von Einträgen in Gerichtsakten, die mittels einer auf Verben abstellenden Methode linguistisch ausgewertet wurden, zeigt dieser Beitrag, dass im frühneuzeitlichen Schweden sowohl Männer als auch Frauen in fast allen Arbeitsformen beschäftigt waren. Auf der Ebene konkreter Tätigkeiten jedoch gab es sowohl Unterschiede als auch Ähnlichkeiten zwischen den Geschlechtern. Der Zivilstand hatte einen starken Einfluss auf die Unterhaltsaktivitäten von Frauen, wodurch sich ein klarer Unterschied zwischen unverheirateten und verheirateten (einschließlich der verwitweten) Frauen ergab. Diese Muster waren wahrscheinlich das Ergebnis der Arbeitsgesetzgebung, durch die junge Leute ohne unabhängiges Einkommen gezwungen wurden, ihren Körper und ihre Arbeitszeit fremden Dienstherren oder Dienstherrinnen anzubieten.

Type
Research Article
Information
Continuity and Change , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , August 2017 , pp. 225 - 252
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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References

Endnotes

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30 http://gaw.hist.uu.se

31 The court material makes up a subset of data from the larger GaW 2014 dataset, which in its turn is part of the GaW database. For more information on the database and the selection of courts, see http://gaw.hist.uu.se. See also Ågren, Maria ed., Making a living, making a difference: gender and work in early modern European society (New York, 2016)Google Scholar.

32 See Erickson, ‘Married women's occupations’ for a discussion of why certain types of court records contain more information on marital status than others do. See also Ogilvie, Bitter living, 25–9, on the problem of finding information on men's marital status in general and particularly on the problem of finding information on unmarried men's work.

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35 Here, only the general principles guiding the categorisation will be discussed. A detailed account of the categories can be found online, see http://gaw.hist.uu.se

36 Carus and Ogilvie, ‘Turning qualitative into quantitative’.

37 See also Ogilvie, Bitter living, 30.

38 In fact, previous research has suggested that women accompanied men on war campaigns to cook and do laundry so, even if there are no examples of this in the dataset, not even the military sector was completely male. Sjöberg, Maria, Kvinnor i fält 1550–1850 (Möklinta, 2008)Google Scholar.

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52 GaW 2014, case 10769 (Norrköping 1650), available at http://gaw.hist.uu.se

53 GaW 2014, case 10287 (Örebro 1754), available at http://gaw.hist.uu.se