Women and the “Second Serfdom”: Evidence from Early Modern Bohemia

Sheilagh Ogilvie and Jeremy Edwards

The Journal of Economic History, 2000, vol. 60, issue 4, 961-994

Abstract: This article investigates women's position in early modem Bohemia by focusing on female household headship, which was very low by European standards. Empirical analysis suggests that the factors hypothesized in the literature as influencing female economic independence in preindustrial Europe had little effect in Bohemia. Instead, it appears that the decline in female headship between 1591 and 1722 was a consequence of the growing power of landlords under the “second serfdom.” Not only did landlords eject female heads as poor fiscal risks, but landlord decisions were also manipulated by village communities and individual serfs for their own ends.

Date: 2000
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:jechis:v:60:y:2000:i:04:p:961-994_02

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The Journal of Economic History from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().