Dealing with love: The ambiguous independence of the single woman in early modern England

Gender and History

Volumn 11, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 209-232

  Sharpe, Pamela ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0039442325     PISSN: 09535233     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1468-0424.00140     Document Type: Article

References (119)

1. E. A. Wrigley and R. Schofield, The Population History of England 1541-1871: A Reconstruction (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1981), pp. 260-63.
2. P. Sharpe, 'Gender-specific Demographic Adjustment to Changing Economic Circumstances: Colyton 1538-1837' (unpublished PhD thesis, Cambridge University, 1988).
3. M. Slater, Family Life in the Seventeenth Century: The Verneys of Claydon House (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1984), p. 78.
4. O. Hufton, 'Women without Men: Widows and Spinsters in Britain and France in the Eighteenth Century', Journal of Family History, 9 (1984), p. 356.
5. M. Hunt, The Middling Sort: Commerce, Gender and the Family in England 1680-1780 (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1996), pp. 142, 144, is essential background to this endeavour. She stresses the confused nature of women's work that emerges from trying to locate their labours within the context of family dynamics. As she remarks, 'A married woman's business ventures would always be contingent, insecure, dependent at some level on another's will, and the last priority, even in harmonious families', and she suggests that it is only possible to provide a slightly more optimistic picture for single women in the 'feminist wasteland' of the eighteenth century. The most comprehensive and recent study of this topic is J. M. Bennett and A. M. Froide (eds), Singlewomen in the European Past 1250-1800 (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1999).
6. M. Hunt, The Middling Sort: Commerce, Gender and the Family in England 1680-1780 (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1996), pp. 142, 144, is essential background to this endeavour. She stresses the confused nature of women's work that emerges from trying to locate their labours within the context of family dynamics. As she remarks, 'A married woman's business ventures would always be contingent, insecure, dependent at some level on another's will, and the last priority, even in harmonious families', and she suggests that it is only possible to provide a slightly more optimistic picture for single women in the 'feminist wasteland' of the eighteenth century. The most comprehensive and recent study of this topic is J. M. Bennett and A. M. Froide (eds), Singlewomen in the European Past 1250-1800 (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1999).
7. The Pinney Papers are in the Special Collections Department of Bristol University Library. Some of the letters were transcribed and selectively published in G. F. Nuttall (ed.), Letters of John Pinney 1679-1699 (Oxford University Press, London, 1939). The correspondence is identified by sender and recipient below.
8. John to Hester, 31 July 1682.
9. D. Nokes, John Gay: A Profession of Friendship (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995).
10. N. McKendrick, 'The Commercialisation of Fashion', in The Birth of a Consumer Society, ed. N. McKendrick, J. Brewer and J. H. Plumb (Europa, London, 1982), p. 85.
11. P. Earle, A City Full of People: Men and Women of London 1650-1750 (London, Methuen 1994), p. 141.
12. Public Record Office (hereafter PRO), C24 1128 Suit P, 26 January 1693.
13. John to Hester, 16 August 1686.
14. Jane to Sarah, 11 June 1685.
15. John to Sarah, 30 November 1685, Postscript by Hester.
16. W. Macdonald Wigfield, 'Azariah Pinney - Yeoman, of Axminster', The Devon Historian, 29 (1984), pp. 17-21; B. Little, The Monmouth Episode (Werner Laurie, London, 1956), p. 229.
17. W. Macdonald Wigfield, 'Azariah Pinney - Yeoman, of Axminster', The Devon Historian, 29 (1984), pp. 17-21; B. Little, The Monmouth Episode (Werner Laurie, London, 1956), p. 229.
18. N. Zahedieh, 'London and the Colonial Consumer in the Late Seventeenth Century', Economic History Review, 47 (1994), p. 250.
19. R. Pares, A West India Fortune (Longmans, Green & Co, London, 1950).
20. Nathaniel to Hester, 6 August 1686.
21. Nathaniel to Hester, 13 February 1687; John to Hester, 18 April 1687 and 7 July 1688; Nathaniel to John, 28 June 1690.
22. John to Hester, 14 February 1687.
23. John to Hester, 18 April 1687.
24. Hufton, 'Women without Men', p. 368.
25. Dorothy Rose to Hester, 29 October 1691.
26. John to Hester, 30 October 1696.
27. John to Hester, 14 February 1687.
28. John to Hester, 17 June 1687.
29. John to Hester, 14 February 1687.
30. John to Hester, 16 August 1688.
31. Nathaniel to John, 10 September 1689.
32. E. Sanderson, Women and Work in Eighteenth-Century Edinburgh (Macmillan, London, 1996), describes the skilled nature of the early modern retail trades, particularly for the care of fabrics. For the clothing trades more generally, see B. Lemire, Dress, Culture and Commerce: the English Clothing Trades Before the Factory, 1660-1800 (Macmillan, London, 1997).
33. E. Sanderson, Women and Work in Eighteenth-Century Edinburgh (Macmillan, London, 1996), describes the skilled nature of the early modern retail trades, particularly for the care of fabrics. For the clothing trades more generally, see B. Lemire, Dress, Culture and Commerce: the English Clothing Trades Before the Factory, 1660-1800 (Macmillan, London, 1997).
34. Nathaniel to John, 10 September 1689.
35. Nathaniel to Hester, 5 December 1696. Keith Thomas judged that women lagged more in numeracy than in literacy in early modern England; see 'Numeracy in early modern England', Transactions of the Royal Historial Society, 37 (1987), pp. 103-32. The Anonymous Advice to the Women and Maidens of London (1678) urged women to substitute for needlework 'The right Understanding and Practice of the method of keeping books of account; whereby either single or married; they may know their Estates, carry on their Trades, and avoid the danger of a helpless and forlorn condition'.
36. Nathaniel to Hester, 5 December 1696. Keith Thomas judged that women lagged more in numeracy than in literacy in early modern England; see 'Numeracy in early modern England', Transactions of the Royal Historial Society, 37 (1987), pp. 103-32. The Anonymous Advice to the Women and Maidens of London (1678) urged women to substitute for needlework 'The right Understanding and Practice of the method of keeping books of account; whereby either single or married; they may know their Estates, carry on their Trades, and avoid the danger of a helpless and forlorn condition'.
37. Nathaniel to Hester, 15 March 1686.
38. Nathaniel to Hester, 20 August 1696.
39. M. George, Women in the First Capitalist Society (Harvester, Brighton, 1987), p. 7.
40. John to Rachel, 31 July 1682.
41. Postscript by Hester on John to Sarah, 30 November 1685.
42. See Pinney Papers recording the legal case regarding the Booth inheritance. Payment made 1 August 1693 Earl of Radnor to Rt Hon. Lady Lucy and George Booth.
43. For example, Nathaniel to Hester, 18 October 1690.
44. Pinney Papers, see Nathaniel's Accounts 1697.
45. Nathaniel to Hester, 3 July 1686.
46. Nathaniel to Hester, 6 August 1686.
47. John to Hester, 16 August 1686; 18 April 1687; 6 December 1690.
48. John to Hester, 6 December 1690; 3 October 1691.
49. Nathaniel to Hester, 8 December 1690.
50. Pinney Papers recording of money transaction, August 1696.
51. PRO, Chancery Town Depositions C24 1158 Suit P, 26 January 1693.
52. Nathaniel to John, 7 August 1691.
53. William Harding to Rachel, 9 October 1690. Her bad temper is usually referred to as her 'spirit'. As Nathaniel wrote to Hester, 15 March 1696, 'you have soe much of that spirit you condemne in others'. There is also evidence that both Hester and Nathaniel did not always meet the standards of polite society. In a practice letter of 1698 Hester apologises for 'any unbecoming language' she or Nathaniel may have used.
54. Nathaniel to Hester, 15 March 1696.
55. Nathaniel to Hester, 6 February 1696.
56. Thomas Rose to Hester, undated; John to Hester undated, c. 1696.
57. Azariah to Hester, 28 April 1701.
58. John to Hester, October 1699.
59. M. Astell, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies for the Advancement of their True and Greatest Interest (London, Part 1, 1701), p. 102.
60. Nathaniel to Hester, 4 September 1699.
61. John to Hester, October 1699.
62. Hester to Cutlove, 17 October 1699.
63. Pinney Papers, unsigned letter in 'Hester the Spinster's Red Box'.
64. N. H. Keeble, The Cultural Identity of Seventeenth-Century Woman: A Reader (Routledge, London, 1994), pp. 252-5. For more detailed discussion, see H. Andreadis, 'The Sappic-Platonics of Katherine Philips 1632-1664', Signs, 15 (1989), pp. 34-60.
65. N. H. Keeble, The Cultural Identity of Seventeenth-Century Woman: A Reader (Routledge, London, 1994), pp. 252-5. For more detailed discussion, see H. Andreadis, 'The Sappic-Platonics of Katherine Philips 1632-1664', Signs, 15 (1989), pp. 34-60.
66. A. Fraser, The Weaker Vessel (Methuen, London, 1984), p. 427.
67. John to Hester, undated; John to Hester, October 1699.
68. John II to Azariah, 29 June 1713.
69. P. G. M. Dickson, The Financial Revolution in England: A Study in the Development of Public Credit 1688-1756 (1967; repr. Gregg, Aldershot, 1993), pp. 250-302.
70. Nathaniel to Hester, 22 February 1696. Like many of the people with whom the Pinneys did financial dealings, Joseph Tiley shared the Pinney's religious and political proclivities. He had been a commissioned officer in Monmouth's Rebellion. Tiley played a crucial role in the development of the credit of the exchequer in the 1690s, forming a crucial link between the West Country and London, see Dickson, Financial Revolution, p. 367.
71. Nathaniel to Hester, 30 October 1710.
72. Nathaniel to Hester, 30 October 1710.
73. Nathaniel to Hester, 3 October 1713.
74. Nathaniel to Hester, Christmas 1714.
75. Pinney Papers, Earl of Warrington to George Booth, undated note.
76. George Booth's will is PRO PROB11/610. The will of his sister Vere Booth (PRO PROB11/562), from whom he inherited Monken Hadley, confirms that Lady Lucy was alive in 1717.
77. For full details see J. Carswell, The South Sea Bubble (Cresset, London, 1960).
78. Nathaniel to Hester, 1 August 1720; 1 October 1720.
79. Nathaniel to Hester, 1 August 1720. Many women did attend to City business rather than employing agents, see A. C. Carter, Getting, Spending and Investing in Early Modern Times (Van Gorum, Assen, Netherlands, 1975), p. 139.
80. Nathaniel to Hester, 1 October 1720.
81. Personal communication with Mr Ken Golding, Lanhydrock House, Cornwall.
82. Naomi to Hester, 30 October 1725.
83. PRO, Chancery C11/2420/21; C11/2420/53; C11/2700/23; C11/2723/42.
84. Walter Marshall to Hester, 18 September 1727, and undated subsequent letter taking legal action against her.
85. She did sometimes purchase luxury items to send to the farm such as earrings for Moll'Hoare, and lattenware in 1696.
86. For example, the Chancery cases regarding the patronage of the church, PRO C11/96/3; C11/89/3. Possible fraud was also afoot, for instance Nevill Booth wrote to Hester, 2 August 1735, saying that there were plans to defraud her of the profits of one of the manors; 'I have that value for ye memory of my Dear Cousin George Booth who put this trust in me that I would not see you cheated & abused for ye world'.
87. Naomi Pinney to Hester, 28 January 1726. For instance, she was immediately called upon when fire destroyed the outbuildings at the farm.
88. Pinney Papers. Monken Hadley Deeds Schedule.
89. See F. C. Cass, Monken Hadley (J. B. Nichols, London, 1880), p. 70. In the event, the Chancery actions do not seem to have been proceeded with and, in fact, the Pinneys held Monken Hadley until 1791.
90. R. B. Pugh (ed.), The Victoria County History of Middlesex, vol. V (1975), p. 264.
91. R. Grassby, The Business Community of Seventeenth-Century England (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995), p. 249, estimates that in the provinces it was rare for a man to leave more than £10,000, and the majority were in the bottom of the range from £500 to £5,000.
92. Nathaniel to Hester, 28 October 1717.
93. Nathaniel to Hester, 29 December 1701.
94. Nathaniel to Hester, 22 June 1723.
95. Nathaniel to Hester, 21 February 1708. Rachel lived with Hester for two five-year periods, before she married, and following Clarke's death.
96. Nathaniel to Hester, 3 October 1708.
97. Pinney Papers. Will and probate account of Elizabeth Dollen. In 1715 Nathaniel and Naomi grudgingly took in another distant relative - an orphaned niece who arrived unannounced in a carriage from London, having failed in her business there. See Sarah Walden to Naomi, 10 February 1715.
98. Azariah to John, 28 August 1711.
99. Sarah Walden to Naomi Pinney, 5 January 1716.
100. Slater, Family Life, pp. 84-5.
101. Hufton, 'Women without Men', p. 372.
102. M. Prior, 'Women and the Urban Economy: Oxford 1500-1800', in Women in English Society 1500-1800, ed. Prior (Routledge, London, 1985), p. 110.
103. P. Earle, 'The Middling Sort in London', in The Middling Sort of People: Culture, Society and Politics in England 1550-1800, ed. J. Barry and J. Brooks (Macmillan, London, 1994), p. 153.
104. Grassby, Business Community (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 153. By contrast, the informal role of wives taking an active part in small businesses, and widows taking over the trades they had become so familiar with while their husbands were alive, has been noted. For example, the seventeenth-century Quaker widow Joan Dant in A. Clark, Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century (1919; 3rd edn, Routledge, London, 1992), pp. 32-3, and the cases provided by Fraser, Weaker Vessel, pp. 426-43. Enterprising widows in Continental Europe are even more readily found. See N. Z. Davis, Women on the Margins (Belknap, Harvard, 1995), for Glickel bas Judah Leib (1645-1719), the Jewish merchant's widow who turned around a business deep in debt and, through her own entrepreneurial talents, hard work and extensive travel within Europe, changed it into a fortune. D. Rabuzzi, 'Women as Merchants in Eighteenth-Century Northern Germany: the Case of Stralsund', Central European History, 28 (1995), pp. 435-56, also describes the trade participation of women in international commerce.
105. Grassby, Business Community (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 153. By contrast, the informal role of wives taking an active part in small businesses, and widows taking over the trades they had become so familiar with while their husbands were alive, has been noted. For example, the seventeenth-century Quaker widow Joan Dant in A. Clark, Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century (1919; 3rd edn, Routledge, London, 1992), pp. 32-3, and the cases provided by Fraser, Weaker Vessel, pp. 426-43. Enterprising widows in Continental Europe are even more readily found. See N. Z. Davis, Women on the Margins (Belknap, Harvard, 1995), for Glickel bas Judah Leib (1645-1719), the Jewish merchant's widow who turned around a business deep in debt and, through her own entrepreneurial talents, hard work and extensive travel within Europe, changed it into a fortune. D. Rabuzzi, 'Women as Merchants in Eighteenth-Century Northern Germany: the Case of Stralsund', Central European History, 28 (1995), pp. 435-56, also describes the trade participation of women in international commerce.
106. Grassby, Business Community (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 153. By contrast, the informal role of wives taking an active part in small businesses, and widows taking over the trades they had become so familiar with while their husbands were alive, has been noted. For example, the seventeenth-century Quaker widow Joan Dant in A. Clark, Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century (1919; 3rd edn, Routledge, London, 1992), pp. 32-3, and the cases provided by Fraser, Weaker Vessel, pp. 426-43. Enterprising widows in Continental Europe are even more readily found. See N. Z. Davis, Women on the Margins (Belknap, Harvard, 1995), for Glickel bas Judah Leib (1645-1719), the Jewish merchant's widow who turned around a business deep in debt and, through her own entrepreneurial talents, hard work and extensive travel within Europe, changed it into a fortune. D. Rabuzzi, 'Women as Merchants in Eighteenth-Century Northern Germany: the Case of Stralsund', Central European History, 28 (1995), pp. 435-56, also describes the trade participation of women in international commerce.
107. Grassby, Business Community (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 153. By contrast, the informal role of wives taking an active part in small businesses, and widows taking over the trades they had become so familiar with while their husbands were alive, has been noted. For example, the seventeenth-century Quaker widow Joan Dant in A. Clark, Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century (1919; 3rd edn, Routledge, London, 1992), pp. 32-3, and the cases provided by Fraser, Weaker Vessel, pp. 426-43. Enterprising widows in Continental Europe are even more readily found. See N. Z. Davis, Women on the Margins (Belknap, Harvard, 1995), for Glickel bas Judah Leib (1645-1719), the Jewish merchant's widow who turned around a business deep in debt and, through her own entrepreneurial talents, hard work and extensive travel within Europe, changed it into a fortune. D. Rabuzzi, 'Women as Merchants in Eighteenth-Century Northern Germany: the Case of Stralsund', Central European History, 28 (1995), pp. 435-56, also describes the trade participation of women in international commerce.
108. Grassby, Business Community (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 153. By contrast, the informal role of wives taking an active part in small businesses, and widows taking over the trades they had become so familiar with while their husbands were alive, has been noted. For example, the seventeenth-century Quaker widow Joan Dant in A. Clark, Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century (1919; 3rd edn, Routledge, London, 1992), pp. 32-3, and the cases provided by Fraser, Weaker Vessel, pp. 426-43. Enterprising widows in Continental Europe are even more readily found. See N. Z. Davis, Women on the Margins (Belknap, Harvard, 1995), for Glickel bas Judah Leib (1645-1719), the Jewish merchant's widow who turned around a business deep in debt and, through her own entrepreneurial talents, hard work and extensive travel within Europe, changed it into a fortune. D. Rabuzzi, 'Women as Merchants in Eighteenth-Century Northern Germany: the Case of Stralsund', Central European History, 28 (1995), pp. 435-56, also describes the trade participation of women in international commerce.
109. For this debate, see A. Vickery, 'Golden Age to Separate Spheres? A Review of the Categories and Chronologies of English Women's History', Historical Journal, 36 (1993), pp. 383-414, and A. Vickery, The Gentleman's Daughter (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1998).
110. For this debate, see A. Vickery, 'Golden Age to Separate Spheres? A Review of the Categories and Chronologies of English Women's History', Historical Journal, 36 (1993), pp. 383-414, and A. Vickery, The Gentleman's Daughter (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1998).
111. L. Davidoff and C. Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class 1780-1850 (Hutchinson, London, 1987), pp. 272-315.
112. M. Hunt, The Middling Sort, p. 146, calls for future scholarship to examine the ways in which the 'family economy' fostered men's disproportionate access to resources.
113. For the need to historicise patriarchy, and its central place in the understanding of women's history, see the writings of Judith Bennett, for example her 'Medieval Women, Modern Women: Across the Great Divide', in Culture and History 1350-1600: Essays on English Communities, Identities and Writing, ed. D. Aers (Harvester Wheatsheaf, London, 1992), pp. 147-75.
114. Compare with M. Palazzi, 'Female Solitude and Patrilineage: Unmarried Women and Widows During the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries', Journal of Family History, 15 (1990), pp. 443-5, and especially with C. Adams, 'A Choice not to Wed?: Unmarried Women in Eighteenth-Century France', Journal of Social History, 29 (1996), pp. 883-94, where the celibacy of the offspring was a result of family unwillingness to divide the patrimony. The women of the family were very active in various pursuits, but the gender inequality in education compares with the Pinney situation. 105. Nathaniel to John, 10 September 1689.
115. Compare with M. Palazzi, 'Female Solitude and Patrilineage: Unmarried Women and Widows During the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries', Journal of Family History, 15 (1990), pp. 443-5, and especially with C. Adams, 'A Choice not to Wed?: Unmarried Women in Eighteenth-Century France', Journal of Social History, 29 (1996), pp. 883-94, where the celibacy of the offspring was a result of family unwillingness to divide the patrimony. The women of the family were very active in various pursuits, but the gender inequality in education compares with the Pinney situation.
116. 105. Nathaniel to John, 10 September 1689.
117. Nathaniel to John, 11 March 1691.
118. K. Thomas, 'The Double Standard', Journal of the History of Ideas, 20 (1956), pp. 195-216.
119. P. Sharpe, 'Literally Spinsters: a New Interpretation of Local Economy and Demography in Colyton in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries', Economic History Review, 44 (1991 ), pp. 46-65. The Pinney evidence adds greater weight to a view that detailed local analysis confounds theories of proto-industrialisation which argue that demographic expansion happened in such areas due to early marriage, low celibacy and resultant high fertility because there was no need to delay marriage to wait for inheritance.