This article points to a largely neglected theme in the maritime history: the important role of sailors' families in urban seafaring communities during the Early Modern Period. At the end of the seventeenth century and during the first decades of the eighteenth century, about 20% of the crewmembers of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) were married. Accordingly, in the towns in Holland where the VOC was present, many women had to run a household by themselves for a long period of time. The sailors' families were often confronted by emotional and financial distress, which to some extent affected the financial expenses of VOC towns as well. Many of these families were however able to cope because they received material support from various urban institutions. The Company created a system that encouraged sailors to send their money home during voyages, while urban poor relief often temporarily complemented the family's budget. Contrary to other married women, wives of sailors could obtain the legal power to engage in financial transactions, or to have access to inheritances. Town councils, civil courts, church councils, charity institutions and the East India Company were all willing to help the seamen's families. Their motives were twofold: while urban communities benefited from financially stable families, and the VOC compensated for their low pay by offering their employees fringe benefits, the attitudes towards seamen's wives also indicate that the urban elites genuinely wanted to provide some assistance to these needy families.
The governments of the Habsburg Empire (1477-1579) and the Dutch Republic (1579) depended largely on taxes imposed on Holland's wealthy cities. The wealth of Holland's cities was used for the needs of the state but only by the consent of the urban governments. Such negotiations benefited both town and ruler. Successful efforts of the province to impose control on urban finances involved the loss of urban financial autonomy, but it did not necessarily harm urban funds. Since it involved the restoration of urban credit as well, the great cities of Holland profited by the increasing provincial control over excises.
The depiction of the situation of single women in early modern urban society is rather pessimistic. Women without men were portrayed as pitiful, with migrant never-married women as the most vulnerable of all. They were said to have lacked the support of parents and of charitable institutions, and to be legally subordinated, and their opportunities on the labor market were extremely restricted. A considerable and probably growing part of the female population in early modern towns lived alone. These were women who had not yet married or never married and widows, as well as married women living without a husband and divorced women. How, then, did these women without men survive these difficult circumstances? This article readdresses the gloomy depiction of women alone in Dutch towns and examines women's legal options, their position in court, their work opportunities, and criminal strategies. We argue that in the Dutch Republic, women had more opportunities to exercise independence than is often assumed. The evidence is based on various examinations of women's legal options, their uses of civil courts, Protestant consistories, work options, and criminal activities in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
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