1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«This essay examines several key moments in the transition that over half the women who married in Montreal during the 1820s made from wife to widow. It looks in detail at the itineraries, choices, and experiences of three women who became widows early in their marriages.» (p. 104)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
«In this study I draw on six main primary sources: parish registers, marriage contracts, wills, document detailing provisions made for burials and funerals, decisions about tutors for widow’s children, and inventories made of a couple’s goods after the husband’s death.» (p. 105)

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse de contenu
Réflexion critique

3. Résumé

«I hope that […] this essay had highlighted three main points: the diversity of trajectories from wife to widow; the range of tasks that widows had to take on during their time of mourning; and the ways the sources they generated are themselves shaped by customs and concerns rooted in religious, cultural, and class practices. First the range of ways these couples organized property within marriage and for widowhood highlights the diversity of arrangements that could readily be made within the broad rules of the Custom of Paris. No women could completely escape the patriarchal characteristics of nineteenth-century marriage law, but each couple negotiated its own individual version of it, within three broad configurations. […] Second, the documents themselves allow us to see some of the many tasks that women were involved in during the early months of their widowhood. […] In their capacity as widows, they had new legal responsibilities and rights. If they had young children, they had to help choose a tutor at a formal gathering of family and friends. […] No widows made these decisions alone.» (p. 126-128)