Memoirs by Glikl bas Judah Leib

Memoirs by Glikl bas Judah Leib

Glikl was a Jewish businesswoman who advised her husband on business matters while raising their twelve children. She took over the whole business at his death, rescued “her eldest son from repeated bankruptcies, and expanding into new markets” (Wiesner-hanks, 454). This paragraph is an excerpt from her memoir. Glikl was proved to be a very unusual women, partly because her religious affiliation as a Jewish. “Because Jews were prohibited from staying in most inns run by Christians” and “Judaism prized the life of a scholar more than that of a merchant,” Glikl had a rather wide “networks of friends with whom women can stay safely” and was freer to “run businesses than their Christian neighbors” (Wiesner-hanks, 454). However, from a different perspective, particularly in comparison to the working status of married and unmarried women in Sweden during approximately the same time period. Glikl’s opportunity and success could also be partially credited to the importance of marriage, especially for women, in the 16-19th century. For example, in 16-18th century Sweden, although women in general were in the same industries or occupations as men did, except military, married and unmarried women had very different occupations. For example, ever-married women were much more visible in “administrative and managerial work, trade in real estate, general trade and credit transactions” (Lindstrom et al., 243). On the other hand, married women were relatively “inconspicuous in categories such as unspecified work, agriculture, transport, other specified work, and theft and misappropriation” where the presence of unmarried women were more profound (Lindstrom et al. 243). Thus, Glikl’s success as a businesswoman could also be associated with the opportunities for married women. Woman obtains the role of head of household when she marries and thus is conferred with more resources like land and other legal capacity. Although the necessity of marriage for women to be in these higher levels of occupations created a sense of women’s dependency on men, the autonomy and relative independency that women gained after marriage also shouldn’t be underestimated. As Lindstrom and others argued that, “marriage put both women and men in a position where they could use the labor of other people for their own benefits” (Lindstrom et al., 245). Women may not be in an inherently dispositional disadvantage in marriage.

Glikl bas Judah Leib

Judah Leib, Glickl bas. Memoirs. Translated by Marvin Lowenthal. New York: Schocken, 1987.

1719

Changlan Wang

Public Domain