Why a Continuing Joint Sphere?

Abstract

The arrondissement’s middle classes never stopped thinking of the economy as an appropriate sphere of activity for women, as part of a family business or on their own, for several reasons: the legal system treated couples as economic teams with equal rights to the conjugal assets; business activities continued to be understood as private ones and extension of those of the household, and this was reinforced by patterns of sociability that confounded business and family. This was overlaid by a conservative mind-set that saw few reasons to discard traditional values and practices, including the intrinsic worth of hard work, the innate competency of women and their natural place in all family activities. The joint sphere never lost its appeal.