Thanks for your patience during our recent outage at scalar.usc.edu. While Scalar content is loading normally now, saving is still slow, and Scalar's 'additional metadata' features have been disabled, which may interfere with features like timelines and maps that depend on metadata. This also means that saving a page or media item will remove its additional metadata. If this occurs, you can use the 'All versions' link at the bottom of the page to restore the earlier version. We are continuing to troubleshoot, and will provide further updates as needed. Note that this only affects Scalar projects at scalar.usc.edu, and not those hosted elsewhere.
12023-02-08T14:04:08-08:00Sue Luftscheinc3da4f338cfb5c3d980919bd84c8fb083c380bd64239234plain13471772023-03-01T17:58:04-08:00Sue Luftscheinc3da4f338cfb5c3d980919bd84c8fb083c380bd6Unlike other countries in Europe, France had relatively loose inheritance laws. Women could inherit property even if a male heir were living. This meant that widows of printers could inherit their husbands' businesses even if they had a son. Parisian laws allowed for community property, and although inheritance laws stipulated that the deceased's property would be divided up amongst widows and surviving children, the widow occupied the primary spot and therefore could become the head of household. As a result, widows like Yolande Bonhomme and Charlotte Guillard were able to preside over the printing businesses of their deceased husbands. However, women were unable to act as printers on their own; they could only do so as the widow of a printer, i.e., after inheriting the business, and only as a widow could they print under their own names. If they remarried, they would be forced to use their new husband's name. If they remarried someone outside of the trade, they were no longer allowed to operate the business. As a result, widows in Paris were encouraged to either remarry a printer, or to remain single in order to continue to operate their businesses.