The “Appropriateness” of Dowry: Women and Inheritance in the Papal States in the Early Nineteenth Century

Abstract

Through consultation of two judicial proceedings, I will explain the relevant role that the institution of the dowry played in nineteenth-century Papal States, and I will highlight how the notion of its “appropriateness” was framed and how fluid its boundaries were. If, at the time of Napoleon’s conquests, the Code Civil des Français, or its translated Italian version, the Codice Civile pel Regno d’Italia, gave the opportunity to all children to inherit from their father regardless of their gender, with the Restoration, the return to the previous legal régime meant a deterioration in women’s condition. Once again, women could only ask for a dowry and were excluded from any other right on paternal inheritance. The first motu proprio of Pope Pius VII (1816) provided that the dowry was to be equal to the legitima portio. This provision was quickly repealed a few years later, and the dowry returned to be just “appropriate” to the social class of the wife. In other words, it went again from an arithmetical definition to a vague concept of appropriateness, its amount being definitely lower than even the legitima portio.