Agents at Home: Wives, Lawyers, and Financial Competence in Eighteenth-Century New England Port Cities
Agents at Home: Wives, Lawyers, and Financial Competence in Eighteenth-Century New England Port Cities
复制标题
国内代理人：十八世纪新英格兰港口城市的妻子、律师和财务能力
DOI：
10.1353/eam.2015.0036
复制
发表时间：
2015
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Sara T. Damiano
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Sara T. Damiano
本文分析了18世纪新英格兰港口城市中代表缺席丈夫行事的妻子，将她们置于代表缺席丈夫行事的更广泛的代理矩阵中。妻子对家庭的管理使她们的丈夫能够追求遥远的商业机会，然而历史学家往往忽视了妻子在被指派者和代理人的混合性别网络中行事。对妻子和男性代理人之间责任分工的分析揭示了男子在实践中的法律的和经济活动的范围和限度。使用的案例研究的商人谁潜逃从波士顿在1755年和其他同时代的例子，我认为，虽然丈夫把显着的信任，在他们的妻子，他们认为某些事项作为男性专业人士的领域，并使用性别化的语言来淡化他们的妻子的能力。这种责任分工的可塑性引发了争议，但也允许妻子们为了自己的利益而选择联盟。
This article analyzes wives who acted on behalf of their absent husbands in eighteenth-century New England port cities, situating them within the broader matrix of agents who acted for absent men. Wives’ management of their households enabled their husbands to pursue distant commercial opportunities, yet historians tend to overlook that wives acted within mixed-sex networks of designees and agents. Analyzing divisions of responsibility between wives and male agents reveals the extent and the limits of men’s legal and economic activities in practice. Using the case study of a merchant who absconded from Boston in 1755 and other contemporaneous examples, I argue that, while husbands placed significant trust in their wives, they saw certain matters as the domains of male professionals and used gendered language to downplay their wives’ competence. The malleability of these divisions of responsibility sparked disputes, but it also allowed wives to co-opt alliances for their own benefit.