The female heads of households in colonial Buenos Aires

Abstract

This study deals with the analysis of women who exercised as heads of households from different perspectives – marital status, racial group, age, origin and profession – in colonial Buenos Aires in the eighteenth century. The 1744 population census of that city is the source used due to the important data it provides and the historical moment in which it occurs. It has been shown by objective evidence how, despite the patriarchal basis society, these households are not is isolate cases, occurring among women of all social and racial status, who were able to take their families out when the situation required.