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Women, Dowries, and Patrimonial Law in Old Regime Romania (c. 1750—1830)

Centre for Lifelong Learning at the University of Warwick

This study explores the legal aspects of dowry provision in the Romanian Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia in the period 1750—1830. Drawing on the period's law codes, dowry papers, testaments, and court records, it highlights the legal and emotional difficulties created by the affective/patrimonial nexus within couples, families, and stepfamilies in a society where divorce and up to three remarriages were allowed by both church and state. A growing body of research into the history of the Romanian family is suggesting that the prescriptions governing dowry provision in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and the consequent exclusion of dowered girls from the family inheritance led to increased cohesion within the nuclear family and to the legal empowerment of women, while providing economic security to divorced women, widows, and children.

Key Words: Romania • Old Regime • women • dowries • codes of law • patrimonial law

This version was published on April 1, 2009

Journal of Family History, Vol. 34, No. 2, 189-205 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0363199008330732


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