THE WORTH OF MARRIED WOMEN IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH COURTS, C.1550-1730

Alexandra Shepard

When Joanna Remesbury and her husband Richard appeared as witnesses be­fore the bishop of Salisbury’s consistory court in 1599, they were both asked to provide an estimate of their net moveable estate.

Joanna Remesbury’s answer typifies the ambiguities associated with the opera­tion of coverture in early modern England that have been highlighted by recent research into the practical realities of marital property relations. While dutifully rehearsing her husband’s rights to dispose of any goods she brought to or acquired within marriage, Joanna’s response also suggests that she nonetheless retained a sense of possession regarding �her goodes’ which, in her mind at the very least, remained distinct as if on temporary loan during her husband’s lifetime.

Married Women and the Law in Premodern Northwest Europe rights, mostly ensuring that the property they brought to a marriage would re­main theirs or their children’s after it.^[602] Even in the absence of any such formal arrangements, Erickson has argued that married women �must... have regarded property in their possession as belonging to them even when it was not legally theirs’.^[603] Whether or not protected by a formal marriage settlement, Joanna Remes- bury may well also have deemed the allocation of her goods to be of mutual or familial benefit as opposed to simply being to her husband’s advantage. Indeed, in contrast to traditionally pessimistic accounts of the restrictions imposed on wives by coverture, Joanne Bailey has gone so far as to argue that married women’s con­tinued sense of possession of the moveable goods they brought to marriage, and shared perceptions that these assets were dedicated to familial use (rather than to a husband’s ownership), were �standard rather than exceptional’.^[604] In other words, these were not merely mitigating factors in a legal culture of constraint, craftily contrived as a form of resistance by a few canny women, but reflected widely-held notions of community property if not separate estate surrounding the goods that wives contributed to the household economy.

Erickson has additionally argued that â€?the marital partnership formed by the joining of assets extended in some households also to the skills that each partner brought to the marriage and the management of the household economy during marriage’.^[605] Although neither Joanna Remesbury nor her husband referred to her contribution to the marital economy, it is unlikely that his occupation as a shepherd and a copyhold worth £5 per annum were sufficient to keep them both without some input from her, even if at the ages of fifty-eight and fifty they may not have had offspring to maintain.

These issues can be explored fruitfully with reference to the responses sup­plied by the many married women who, like Joanna Remesbury, were ques-

Married Women Witnesses in the English Church Courts tioned as witnesses in the church courts about what they were worth and how they maintained themselves. This essay will investigate, first, the varied terms in which wives represented their worth in court when, according to coverture at least, they were technically worthless. Secondly, it will explore the answers wives gave to the question of how they were maintained. The analysis is based on a selection of 13,696 witness responses to the question of their worth, drawn from a range of ecclesiastical jurisdictions between 1550 and 1728.^[607] Female wit­nesses comprise almost a quarter (24 per cent) of this dataset, of whom over half (at least 55 per cent) were married - a total of 1,843 wives. Of these, 303 (16 per cent) additionally responded to enquiries about how they maintained themselves. While many of their answers echoed the conventions of coverture that married women possessed no moveable assets and depended on their hus­bands for a living, as many as half of wives' responses contained varying degrees of ambiguity if they did not explicitly flout these norms. The ways in which married women's answers departed from the letter of the law, even in this most conservative of settings, are suggestive of far more widely held attitudes to the marital economy based not necessarily on equality but at least on expectations of partnership and mutuality.

Worth

Witnesses providing an estimate of their worth in goods, taking into account all outstanding debts, gave brief statements rather than detailed reckonings, which were often highly formulaic. The most common type of response was a monetary estimate, usually expressed in round numbers, which quantitative measures also held qualitative associations.^[608] Unsurprisingly, married women's answers to the question of their worth were only rarely expressed as a simple monetary estimate of the net value of their moveable estate. However, the degree of variation in wives' responses is nonetheless indicative of flexible attitudes towards the dictates of cov­erture that included claims to joint spousal and independent property ownership by women within marriage.

The extent of variation also suggests that, in spite of the laconic character of most responses, they were neither overly formulaic nor unduly shaped by scribal influence. Married women's worth statements can be coded as 101 variants, rang­ing from rehearsals of coverture (with varying degrees of ambiguity), through assessments of their husbands’ means, through a series of evasions, to claims to community property or separate estate. Only two of these variants (several of which were expressed in a range of ways) comprised more than 10 per cent of wives’ responses. Women’s answers to the question of their worth were less likely than men’s to be recorded solely in Latin (not least because they contained few straightforward monetary estimates), and the variation in the phrasing of re­sponses by witnesses in the same case indicates that scribal input was limited. The elaboration of some responses, and deletions, suggest that wives’ own formula­tions of their worth, when forthcoming, were recorded. Of course the forms of appraisal adopted would still have been shaped by the court setting which is likely to have encouraged conservative or evasive strategies of self-description, although it should be remembered that a working knowledge of a person’s (and one’s own) net assets would have been an everyday necessity beyond the courtroom for the assessment of rates and for brokering credit, and was critical to rites of passage surrounding marriage and death.^{[609] [610] Given that married women’s accounts of their worth in court may have been more cautiously expressed than the ways they rep­resented themselves in other arenas, their answers spanned an impressive spec­trum of possibilities many of which fell firmly outwith the dictates of coverture.}

The great majority of wives (71 per cent) specifically referred to their marital status in response to the question of their worth, but they did so in a wide va­riety of ways. The most straightforward response in this vein was expressed as two main variants, either simply as â€?she is married’ or â€?she is under covert baron’. Coverture was expressly mentioned in 12 per cent of wives’ answers to the ques­tion of their worth. Even without explicit references to coverture, several women spelled out the implications of marital status on a wife’s worth in compliance with common law expectations that she forfeited ownership of moveable property on marriage. A fifth of all wives responding to the question of their worth declared that they were either married or under covert baron and therefore worth noth­ing. In the 1630s, for example, Margaret Jancock (the wife of a gardener) declared that she was â€?nothing worth in her proper goods, for she is a married woman, and under Coverture’, while in York in 1671 a miller’s wife claimed that â€?she being a marryed woman hath nothing of her owne’.¹¹

Several wives (6 per cent) simply claimed they were worth little or nothing without any reference to their marital status. It is possible that such responses denoted material hardship in addition to or even instead of their lack of legal en­titlement to goods, and in several instances this was made explicit when married women also referred to themselves as �poor’. In 1620, for example, Joan Comage (married to a shoemaker) responded simply that she was �a poore woman’^[611] In 1635 Ellen Frie alluded to both material hardship and coverture when she an­swered that �her husband is a poore man & she of her selfe [is] nothing worth’, and in 1697 a sawyer's wife similarly declared that �she hath no estate of her owne and is but a poore woman’^[612] The extent to which wives who declared themselves worth little or nothing (without any direct reference to their marital status in response to the question) was a product of relative privation as opposed to coverture can be explored further in the causes when both spouses appeared as witnesses, allowing comparison of their worth statements.

The fact that a relatively high proportion of wives (compared with other wom­en and men) supplied no recorded response to the question can also be linked to assumptions that married women had no worth to account for.^[615] Several wives also declared explicitly that the question did not concern them because they were married, such as Catherine Wannell (married to a London freemason), who re­sponded in 1625 that �she is a married woman and therefore it concerneth not her’^[616] Another London wife, married to a haberdasher, responded in similar terms in 1617 that the question did not concern her �because she is a mans wief’ despite also claiming (in contravention of the terms of coverture) that she maintained herself �by taking Clothes to wash’^[617] A few wives simply referred to their husband’s response to the same question, while others rebutted the question of their worth

Married Women and the Law in Premodern Northwest Europe more robustly by suggesting they were not legally obliged to answer, such as Mar­garet Tirrell (married to a butcher), who declared in 1686 that she �hath been a marryed wife for about 18 yeares & that she doth conceive she is not bound to give any further answer to this Interrogatory’.^[618] In such cases, therefore, coverture may well have aided evasion strategies by which witnesses avoided providing an estimate of their means.

The guiding logic of coverture was also present in more conformist ways in responses from wives who claimed to be worth nothing but what they received from their husbands. In Cambridge in the 1590s, Parnell Algate, married to a barber, responded that she was �a marryed wyef & under covert baron, & ys noth- inge worth of hir selfe but what she hath of or from hir husband, while a carter's wife answered that she �oweth nothinge nor hath nothinge but upon her husbands Courtesye'.^[619] A husbandman's wife from Hindon (Wiltshire) likewise replied that �what she hath is from her husband and att his benevolens’^[620] Such responses were in line with the law of necessaries - one of the mitigating aspects of coverture which allowed women to make purchases of essential goods appropriate to their husband's worth and status.^[621] It is possible that this gave some wives a sense of their worth in terms of a particular credit limit, which may be what Miriam Mor­timer (a gardener's wife) had in mind when she declared in 1600 that she was worth forty shillings in her own proper goods, everyone paid, �with the permis­sion of her husband’^[622]

Several wives (3 per cent) provided a slightly more ambiguous formulation of the impact of coverture by declaring that they were worth little or nothing besides their clothes - which had legal status as â€?paraphernalia' comprising a wife's clothes, jewels, bed linens and plate. While a husband enjoyed the right to dispose of these goods during marriage, they automatically reverted to a wife on his death. When in 1561 Elizabeth Jurdeyn declared that she was â€?worth a cople of russet peticotes and the rest is her husbands' she therefore presumed present as well as future ownership.^[623] In the early seventeenth century, the â€?spinster' Margaret Younge, al­ready married at the relatively early age of twenty to a yeoman worth £40, simi­larly responded that she was â€?under covert barne & not worth any thinge more then her apparell, so longe as her husband lyves', and Helen Chapman, working as a maid in Cambridge, declared that â€?as she is a marryed wyfe she is worth nothing but her Clothes of her backe’^[624]

Other wives - like Joanna Remesbury in the example which began this essay - implied more general claims to the goods they had brought to marriage, even

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while ostensibly acknowledging the strictures of marital property law. Eustacia Parmafoy, married to a labourer, responded in 1575 that �her husband is owner of that she hath'; a weaver's wife answered in 1596 that she was �an other mans wife and all which she hath is her husbands & at his comanndment'; and Agnes Mershe declared in 1608 that she was �worth nothing for that which shee hath it is her husbands & he is living''.^[625] Such answers convey the impression that the women concerned retained a continued sense of possession, if not legal ownership, to­wards the goods they had brought to marriage.^[626]

A number of married women placed the focus more squarely on their hus­band's worth, rather than speaking about their own estate, lack of it, or limited rights to it. Thirteen per cent of wives responded to the question of their worth by referring solely to their husband's substance, with no mention of their own. These responses ranged from assertions of their husband's worth to professions of ignorance about their husband's assets. Around 6 per cent of wives provided a monetary estimate of their husband's worth, speaking of their spouse's moveable estate in the same terms that the majority of all male witnesses used.^[627] So a hus­bandman's wife answered in 1626 that â€?her husband is worth xx li his debts paid, or thereabouts, as shee beleeveth', while Mary Wilkinson of Pontefract (Yorkshire) declared in 1622 that â€?she is perswaded her husbands estate is better then C li in debtles goodes' - a verdict with which her husband (a gentleman) concurred in his claim to be worth £100 â€?and more'.^[628] When women appeared alongside their husbands as witnesses in the same cause, it is possible to compare wives' estimates of their husband's worth with the account provided by their spouse. In ten out of fifteen such cases the estimates provided by spouses matched. Interestingly, in the remaining cases in which there was a mismatch between spousal accounts, four of the five wives provided a higher valuation of their husband's goods than that declared by their spouse. Agnes Fulbrooke, for example, claimed in 1604 that her husband was worth â€?of his owne goods every body payd the som of lx li, in con­trast to his estimate of £50.^[629] Whether or not they were optimistically appraised, wives' accounts of their husband's worth suggest at the very least that such women assumed knowledge of their spouse's estate, dealings and credit, if not shared in it.

A few wives referred to their husband's means in qualitative terms, without specifying a monetary value but nonetheless conveying the impression of sub­stance. Sarah Hauson, for example, married to a Halifax carrier, declared in 1663 that she had �an husband liveing of a pritty competent estate'.^[630] All such responses were from the northeast, and came from women married to clothiers, gentlemen and clergymen. Another way of asserting a man's worth was to refer to his inclu­sion in the subsidy books. A London armourer's wife stated simply in 1597 that �her husband is a subsidie man', while Joanna Hamlyn responded with more detail

Married Women and the Law in Premodern Northwest Europe in 1608, declaring that �her husband is a husbandman, & rated at iii li in goods in the Subsidie book’.^[631] It is hard to imagine that such claims to spousal worth were not shared in some way, even if only as a measure for the law of necessaries to operate whereby a wife's credit was gauged in relation to her husband’s status.

Several wives (3 per cent) also detailed the limits of their husband’s means, by declaring them to be worth little or nothing or poor. Some wives spoke of their husband’s indebtedness, such as Dorothy Binge, whose husband kept a poor house in Chartham, Kent, who admitted in 1575 that �if every man were payd her husband were lytle or nothing worthe’, and a saddler’s wife from Salisbury who responded in 1590 that her husband was �a very poore mann but litle thing worth beyond his debts or rather nothing at all worth’^[632] Others emphasized their hus­band’s limited earning capacity, like a weaver’s wife who described her husband as �a poore blindeman... very little worth’ in 1635, and a sawyer’s wife who answered in 1634 that �her husband is a poor man, & lives by his labour & hath nothing els to stick to’^[633] These responses were echoed by these women’s husbands who, re­spectively, responded that �being a blind man, he is faine to have releefe from the Towne where he dwells, having no estate or meanes els of his owne’, and that �he liveth by his hand labor, & is worth nothing more than what [he] earns’^[634] A few women, such as Christiana Goddin, a weaver’s wife from Salisbury, simply stated that �her husband is a poore man’ That the language of poverty was deployed se­lectively is suggested by Christiana Goddin’s response to the same question when appearing as a witness in a related cause a few weeks previously, in which she declared more conventionally (and also more evasively) that �she is another mans wife & therefore not much worthe of her selffe’^[635] In cases where women’s estimates of their husband’s worth can be compared with statements by their husbands, however, wives were more likely to use the adjective �poor’ in relation to their husbands than the husbands describing themselves, even when couples agreed that their means were limited, just as women were more likely than men to de­scribe themselves as �poor’ more generally.^[636] It may be that in such circumstances husbands’ appraisals were more optimistic than their wives’, or merely more de­fensively couched, although it cannot be known how many wives cloaked their relative poverty under a veil of coverture when facing enquiries about their worth in court. A deletion in the response of Elizabeth Baldocke in 1584 is suggestive of such a strategy. Having first declared that her husband was �but a pore man’, this was deleted in favour of �she is a mans wiffe & not verie privie to her husbands welthe’ - clearly a preferable response in terms of both spouses’ credit.^[637]

Around 5 per cent of wives claimed ignorance of their husband’s worth in what may have been deliberately evasive strategies. Some such responses were framed

explicitly as a consequence of coverture, while others were more ambiguous. Mary Rutty, married to a husbandman, stated in 1620 that �she is a maried wife & knoweth not her husbands estate'; a London tanner's wife responded in 1630 that she was �unacquainted with the value of her husbands estate'; while Agnes Gibbes, a farmer's wife, claimed in 1664 that �shee is a wife and what her husband is worth shee doth not knowe’^[638] Of the seventeen wives claiming to be unaware of their husband's worth whose husbands also appeared in court, eleven of their spouses provided firm monetary estimates of their moveable wealth, suggesting a discrep­ancy between spouses in their attitudes towards property and the ability to ac­count for it. However, some husbands also claimed ignorance of their own worth and it is possible that neither partner had a clear idea of their household's assets. In 1700, for example, a tailor and his wife responded respectively that �he does not know what he is worth his debts paid' and �she does not know what her husband is worth his debts paid’.^[639] Of all the male witnesses asked what they were worth, a similar proportion (6 per cent) claimed they did not know, so it is likely that several wives' responses in this vein (if not deliberately evasive) reflected shared ignorance rather than gender divergence.

Some wives provided explanations for their ignorance that were less consonant with the formal constraints of coverture, suggesting their lack of knowledge was either a temporary state of affairs or the product of complex credit arrangements to which, in some cases, they were party. The wife of William Hazell, a tanner, replied that �she... beeing newly a marryed woman is not yet acquainted with her husbands Dealings but hopeth her husband beeing a tradesman is not much in debt [my italics]', adding that �if hee bee [in debt] its not knowne to her’^[640] That she was described in the biographical preamble to her deposition as Mary Wescott alias Hazell is also indicative of her newlywed status, and her response conveys the expectation of future familiarity with her husband's commercial affairs. Other wives attributed their ignorance of their husband's worth to a lack of up-to-date knowledge rather than to their marital status. Denise Browneinge, married to a blacksmith, claimed in 1646 that �she cannot tell what her husband is worth (by reason she knowes not what debtes hee owes) but beleeves that hee is worth five powndes of lawfull English money his debtes payd’^[641] A few other wives similarly declared ignorance of their husband's worth while also ascribing a minimal mon­etary value to it, such as the husbandman's wife who responded in 1627 that �she is a wife and knoweth not her husbands estate but beleveth he is worth x li at least his debts paid’^[642] It is likely that many a wife declaring ignorance of her husband's net estate was unsure of the extent of his - and indeed her own - current credit and debt relations rather than entirely ignorant of his assets. And, significantly, that this could work both ways is suggested by Thomas Erlam's response in 1596 that �he knoweth not what money his wiefe oweth the malte man’.^[643] Of the wives who declared ignorance of their husband’s estate, a disproportionate number were married to craftsmen and tradesmen from urban centres - that is, couples whose credit networks were likely to be dense and highly fluid, making net assets difficult to estimate with any precision from day to day.

There was considerable room for ambiguity, therefore, even in the worth state­ments of wives that ostensibly conformed to the conventions of coverture. In ad­dition, several responses provided by married women more openly contradicted the common law framework governing marital property relations either by stress­ing shared spousal worth, or by claiming independent means. A few wives de­clared joint marital assets in monetary terms. While stating in 1590 that she was �subjecte to her husbande’ (a miller), Margery Farnecombe also declared that �they have a howsse of their owne & somthinge else to the valew of v li [my italics]’.^[644] A husbandman’s wife from Hastings declared more simply in 1638 that �shee & her husband are worth xx li theire debts payd’, while in the same year Mildred Baker responded �she is and her husband are worth 60 li of lawfull English money their debts paid’ - the deleted �is’ suggesting that her original impulse had been simply to state this sum as her own worth without reference to her husband.^[645] Other wives referred to more limited resources in shared terms, such as a brazier’s wife who responded in 1641 that �she beleiveth she this deponent & her husband are not worth anythinge’, and Katherine Younge who confessed in 1612 that �this respondent & her husband are poore people’^[646] Others explicitly professed a joint sense of worth even when declaring they did not know the value of their estate, such as a farmer’s wife in 1704 who claimed that �she does not know what her husb[and] & she are worth theire debts payd’ - in contrast to her husband’s ad­mission that �he is worth but little his debts payd’.^[647]

Furthest removed from the expectations of coverture were the responses of the few wives who did express a positive sense of worth independent from their husbands. Eighteen married women (1 per cent of all wives asked about their worth) referred to assets of their own and provided a monetary valuation, albeit sometimes in ambiguous terms. Ann Prime, for example, while declaring herself â€?under Covert baron’ in 1620, rather contradictorily â€?sayth she is worth 40s her debts payed’. Her husband had also declared himself worth forty shillings when appearing as a witness in the same cause, a sum apparently revised downwards from his initial (deleted) estimate of £5.^[648] It is possible that in this case Ann Prime was assuming joint worth with her husband rather than referring to any separate estate. This may also have been true of the other wives who simply provided a monetary estimate of their net estate in response to the question of their worth without any mention of their marital status, such as Jane Haines (a sailor’s wife)

Married Women Witnesses in the English Church Courts who in 1594 stated that �she is worth v li every man paid, and Anne Williams who in 1637 claimed to be �worth x li in debtles goods’.^[649] However, they might just as well have been claiming independent means, as suggested by the octogenarian Ellen Blacoe who claimed in 1600 that �shee doth live of her self & is worth xx li of debtles goods’^[650]

In a few such responses the women concerned appear to have laid claim to separate estate. The wife of a Yorkshire shepherd replied in 1666 that she was �a marryed woman... of a small estate of worth about x li, while Johan Blacklache, having maintained in 1587 that she was �not privie to her husbands substance, also stated that �she hath her dowry out of certaine lands of her late husbands wherwith & by her husbands & her owne travell she liveth’^[651] A waterman’s wife, declaring in 1719 that �shee followes noe employment &... is maintained by her Mother & her Father in law, added that she �has alsoe thirty five pounds a yeare now comeing in’.^[652] Elizabeth Jones, married to a gentleman, similarly referred to her dependence for maintenance, claiming in 1710 that �shee followes noe trade buisnesse or employement nore ever did that shee knowes [and] that... before her marriage to her present husband was maintained by her owne fortune & since then by her husband’. However, she also declared herself �worth of her owne estate her debts paid between two & three thousand pounds, which consisteth in money land securities & annuities in the Government, suggesting that �her own fortune’ nonetheless remained distinct from her husband’s worth, which he estimated at �above two thousand pounds his debts paid’.^[653]

More than half (eleven out of eighteen) of the wives who provided monetary estimates of their own worth appeared as witnesses in London, but the fact that some had clearly been married more than once and that they were married to men whose occupations involved long absences may have been just as significant.^[654] Two were married to sailors, one to a merchant, and one to a waterman, while another was married to a conductor to the train of artillery (although he was unemployed at the time of her appearance in court). One clearly ran an independ­ent business, replying that her husband was �Gardiner to the Lady Russell’ while she �keepes a publick house, adding that �shee payes to all publick rates & taxes & beleives herselfe worth an hundred pounds her debts paid [my italics]’.^[655] Three others, however, were married to gardeners, one to a shepherd, one to a flaxdress­er, one to a gentleman, and one to the chamber keeper to the queen’s gentleman­waiters’ pages, and the chronological incidence of their responses spanned the late sixteenth to the early eighteenth centuries, suggesting that such answers defy any single explanation. While exceptional in the context of the church courts, it

is possible that such open rejection of the conventions of coverture was indicative of wider expectations - albeit tacit - that married women could claim credit in these terms.

Maintenance

An impression of joint or shared spousal worth, and sometimes of economic inde­pendence, was also conveyed by many married women's answers to the question of how they maintained themselves. Although wives responded less frequently than unmarried women to enquiries about what they did for a living, 56 per cent of those who did provide information about their working lives departed from expectations that they should be maintained by their husband.^[656] Of these many spoke in general terms of living by their labour or industry without specifying what this involved, but 103 wives described the nature, if not the proportion, of their contribution to the marital economy, with some detailing multiple tasks. The vast majority (82 per cent) of these wives supplying details appeared as witnesses in London, and 74 per cent occurred between the 1660s and 1720s, suggesting that more specific responses were principally a feature of the metropolitan context and its rapidly diversifying economy.^[657] However, although not providing the level of detail specified by London wives from the later seventeenth century, married women appearing as witnesses in other jurisdictions and earlier in the period also gave varied impressions of their productive roles and often spoke in similar terms to male witnesses. It should also be remembered that the details of many men's economic roles were masked by the convention of describing them by their rank (as gentlemen, yeomen or husbandmen) rather than specifying the particulars of how they sustained it.

As with their worth statements, many wives provided conventional answers such as a miller's wife who declared in 1623 that �she is a wif, and therefore her meanes & liveinge is and depends solely of & from her husband', and Katherine Mayne who replied in 1664 that �she is under covert baron & her husband main- tayneth her'.^[658] Others stated that they had no occupation or employment, while several simply named their husband's occupation as the source of their mainte­nance, such as Margaret Gilbert in 1588 who declared �her husband getteth her living by his trade being a joyner'.^[659] Of the 278 cases in which their husband's occupation was stated, disproportionate numbers of those married to gentlemen, yeomen and professional men (lawyers, merchants and physicians) responded in this vein, although such answers were not exclusive to wealthier social groups. All the wives of professional men responded that their husbands maintained them, 73 per cent of gentry wives, and 50 per cent of yeomen's wives, compared with an overall average of 42 per cent of wives whose husbands' occupations were stated. Of the wives of tradesmen and craftsmen, 48 per cent replied that they were main­tained by or depended on their husbands, compared with 30 per cent of husband­men's wives and 27 per cent of labourers' wives.

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By contrast, evidence of wives' economic contribution was not restricted to particular social strata or social groups even if it increased down the social spec­trum, as 27 per cent of gentry wives, 50 per cent of yeomen wives, 52 per cent of artisanal wives, 70 per cent of husbandmen's wives, and 73 per cent of labourers' wives claimed to provide at least some of their living. So, for example, despite de­claring in 1609 that she was �of noe occupation’, a farrier's wife nonetheless added that she �liveth by her owne industrie and her husbonds labor together'.^[660] A sense of joint effort - and even shared occupational identity - is conveyed by the many wives who responded that they and their husbands lived by their labour, such as the blacksmith's wife who claimed in 1625 that �she and her husband be labouringe people and have nothinge but what they gett by their owne labor'.^[661] Despite claim­ing that �she is a wife and her husband is a poore man whose estate she knoweth nott’ Alice Wheskyn (married to a �mealeman') nonetheless declared in 1623 that �she liveth par[t]ely by the meanes her husband getteth and partely by her owne honest labours'.^[662] A husbandman's wife similarly claimed in 1605 to get �parte of her livinge... by her honest labour & paines taking' while declaring herself worth nothing because she was married and her husband still living.^[663] Very occasionally, a wife's input was explicitly acknowledged by her spouse, such as when a septua­genarian husbandman responded in 1621 that he lived �by the labor of himself & his wife'.^[664] It is also likely that many of the wives claiming to be maintained by their husband's trade were actually active participants in it, as implied by Alice Dodridge who rather ambiguously stated in 1594 that �she is a mans wife & livethe by his occupacion beinge a tailor without want she thancketh god'.^[665] Some wives specified the proportion of their contribution, such as a tobacco pipe maker's wife who stated that �she laboureth for >a parte of< her living, but for her maintenance she dependeth more on her husband than her owne labor'.^[666] Others outlined a less attractive division of labour, such as a builder's wife who responded in 1625 that she had �lived for theis two yeares last past by her labors for her husband hath bene absent from her for all that tyme', and a harness maker's wife who complained in 1623 that �although she be a wife yett she is constrayned to get her lyving by anie lawfull meanes as she can to maintaine her by being a servant to other men'.^[667] In this last case, the wife's complaint most likely betrayed expectations that she should be undertaking independent work once married (rather than remain in service), and not that she should be maintained by her husband.

The significance of wives' work to the household economy can also be gauged from the responses of the married women who claimed in general terms to get their living - wholly or partly - �by their labour'. While married to men with a wide range of occupations, their proportions similarly increased as the social sta­tus of their husband decreased. Of those whose husband's occupation was stated, 36 per cent of labourers' wives claimed to live by their labour compared with 30 per cent of husbandmen's wives, 18 per cent of women married to crafts/trades- men, and 10 per cent married to yeomen and gentlemen. These proportions fol­lowed a roughly similar pattern to those of male witnesses stating that they lived by their labour, with 83 per cent of labourers speaking of their maintenance in these terms, 48 per cent of husbandmen, 17 per cent of men occupied in crafts/ trades, 5 per cent of yeomen and 2 per cent of gentlemen. Of all wives responding to the question of how they maintained themselves, 21 per cent claimed to live by their labour. Remarkably, this corresponds to the proportion of men responding in the same way to the question of their maintenance, which was 24 per cent. By contrast, only 12 per cent of single women claimed to live by their labour, com­pared with 28 per cent of widows, suggesting a greater divergence in the working identities of married women and their never-married counterparts than between married women and men of comparable status.

It would be misleading to conclude that all working wives were victims of poverty consigned to a life of drudgery. Nearly a quarter (24 per cent) of wives responding to the question of how they maintained themselves detailed specific forms of work, often without reference to their husband, suggesting not only in­dependent employment but also in a few cases a distinct occupational identity. Besides speaking of their labour or industry, wives also referred to their trade, oc­cupation and even �profession' in relation to a variety of tasks ranging from service and charring to craft, retail, nursing and midwifery. Wives also undertook a much wider range of roles than single women (83 per cent of whom were in domestic service), detailing work patterns that were similar to those of widows.

Most commonly specified was nursing/medical care, with 20 per cent of wives who provided details about how they made a living looking after children or tend­ing women in childbed, including Joan Charnon, married to a shoemaker, who stated in 1625 that �she liveth by her profession of a midwife'.^[668] Almost as many (19 per cent) were involved in selling goods, ranging from old clothes, butter, eggs, fish, fruit and herbs, to chandlery, books, fans and perfume, some at market or as street sellers, and others as shop keepers. Next came many forms of making and mending clothes (17 per cent), ranging from knitting to embroidery and plain work, and making caps, gloves, scarves, children's clothes, stays, and mantuas. While many professed simply to live by their needles, some detailed the train­ing, skill and status involved, such as a painter's wife who declared in 1688 that she had �served 7 yeares as an apprentice to one Mrs Rirburensen to the Trade of Embroidery, by which she gets her liveing’, and Mary Bellchamber, married to a shoemaker, who stated in 1719 that she got �her livelyhood by working at the Taylors trade’.^[669] Several (12 per cent) were involved in victualling and catering trades, with some keeping inns and public houses. Nearly 10 per cent maintained themselves by washing, starching, scrubbing or charring of some kind, including a woman who in 1624 claimed to be married to a gentleman while getting �her lyv- ing by starchinge of bands to shopps’^[670] Equal proportions (9 per cent) worked as domestic servants to those involved in textile manufacture, spinning, carding, and winding silk. One wife drove cattle, one carried water, another carried tubs, one taught children to sew, and in 1703 one claimed to maintain herself and her child as �a journey woman to carry Tobacco Pipes’^[671] Some wives, deft at the economy of makeshifts, undertook more than one type of work, such as Anne Buck, who in 1709, �worth litle', lived �by her husbands pay as a seaman & her owne industry in innkeeping & doeing thread worke', and Misericordia Jeke, a butcher's wife, who at the age of 63 in 1724 �followes the buisnesse of Nursekeeping & when out of place sells fruite’^[672]

When witnesses providing details of their employment also specified their hus­band’s occupation, it is possible to assess the extent to which they worked jointly with or independently from their spouse. Of the eighty-eight such cases listed in the appendix below, only twelve (14 per cent) wives worked alongside their hus­bands. Alice Dayly, for example, married to a fruiterer in the west end of London, responded that �she helps to get her liveing as well as her Husband by selling fruit and Chandlery ware’^[673] These joint enterprises mostly involved victualling and ca­tering, or making clothes - occupations that were also undertaken separately by both wives and husbands’ Of the couples working in unrelated occupations, in some cases both spouses contributed wage work to the household economy, in other cases one partner earned wages in addition to the other’s trade, while in a few cases a �double business household’ can be identified’^[674] Catherine Jennings, for example, simply described herself as a mantua maker without responding to the question of her worth, while her husband declared that he was �by trade a Glassegrinder worth about two hundred pounds his debts paid’^[675] In such cases marriage was clearly no bar to female commercial enterprise, and women’s indus­try was not necessitated by financial hardship’^[676]

A quarter of the wives providing details of their working lives claimed to be worth little or nothing or poor, or described their husbands in these terms’ A further quarter did not respond to the question of their worth at all, while several maintained that the question either did not concern them or that they were not obliged to respond. A few referred to their husband's worth, if only to profess ignorance of it. Only one married woman who described what she did for a living also claimed independent means, and these were derived from �an estate of thirty pound a yeare left her by her first husband' rather than from her work at cap mak­ing - an occupation she shared with her current husband.^[677] For the majority of wives it appears that contributing to their livelihood made little impact on how they accounted for their worth, and in many cases it was a direct consequence of their relative poverty. In 1696, for example, Susan Kettey claimed to get her liv­ing �by buying of old Cloths', declaring herself �worth nothing she being forced to work to gett bread'.^[678] However, it would clearly be wrong to conclude from such statements that married women's work was born of desperation any more than married men's work. What is evident from such women's statements about how they maintained themselves, if not always from how they described their worth, is the extent to which provisioning their households was approached as a joint undertaking between spouses, even if this was mostly unspoken and only very rarely admitted by their husbands. Robert Wheare was an exception to this rule when he responded in 1634 that �he being a Taylor and his wyfe a midwyfe they doe maynteyne them selves by theire honest indevours’.^[679]

Conclusion

A sceptical reading of the evidence presented here would place heavy emphasis on the many wives who responded simply that they were married, or, more explicitly in line with legal convention, that they were worth nothing because under covert baron and that they were maintained by their husbands. However, the exceptions were too many and too varied simply to constitute proof of such a rule, and a more nuanced reading would emphasize the ways in which wives both exploited the mitigating factors governing the operation of coverture such as the law of necessaries, and openly flouted expectations that they had no claims to moveable goods and that they depended upon their husbands. Between the extremes of de­pendence and independence lies an extensive grey area of considerable ambigu­ity, as well as the possibility of strategic self-fashioning in court to mask the level (and often the lack) of marital assets. Significant numbers (7 per cent) of wives speaking about their own or their husband's worth implied either jointly or inde­pendently held goods, and if those describing themselves and/or their husbands as worth little or nothing are included, the proportion of wives providing some sort of evaluation (albeit many in negative terms) rises to 51 per cent. In addi­tion, over half of those who gave information about their maintenance departed from assumptions that this should be provided by their spouse, and some such wives were clearly occupied in crafts, trade and retail as a matter of choice and in an entrepreneurial capacity rather than out of crude economic necessity. Of particular significance is the extent of overlap in the language deployed by men and women claiming to live �by their labour, with similar proportions of men and married women responding in these terms. Amongst lower ranking people this was linked to a more profound divergence between married and single women than between men and their wives. It also suggests that marriage, rather than wid­owhood, was the stage at which women undertook more varied and independent forms of productive work. Even in the relatively conservative forum of the church courts, therefore, the majority of married women - and very occasionally even their spouses - acknowledged informal expectations of joint marital property, if not personal estate, and an active contribution of resources, labour, management and skill to the domestic economy.