344 anna bellavitis
mid-16th century, when a maidservant earned an average of 5 ducats per
year and dowries in this group of female workers were on average 98 duc-
ats, it would have taken at least 20 years to scrape together a dowry, if the
young bride were to rely solely on her own resources. in reality, this was
not necessarily the case, particularly when it came to maidservants, who,
rather than earning a regular salary, were kept in the master’s house and
often received a dowry at the end of the term of service. in their wills,
members of the nobility, the bourgeoisie, and the merchant class who left
their maidservants the salary due to them also made it clear that some-
times the credit these workers held with their masters could be protracted
for a long time and generate situations of prolonged dependence, from
which it could become difficult to emerge. in addition to bequests by mas-
ters, young women from the popular classes could count on dowry con-
tributions provided by the many Venetian charitable organizations. the
importance of the dowry should be noted, as a symbol of female honor,
in a context in which in reality husbands and wives contributed in equal
measure, with their work, to the support of the family. the dowry, how-
ever, composed essentially of the trousseau, was needed to “set up house,”
and in Venice, in fact, it was generally the custom for brides to furnish the
matrimonial bed.54
By contrast, in marriage contracts within these social classes, the hus-
band often endeavored to pay a sum of money, called counter-dowry, to
the wife in case she were to remain a widow, a practice that was much less
frequent in the rest of the population. the couple was the primary eco-
nomic partnership, and artisan husbands and wives often shared house
and shop alike. the wills of artisans’ wives that make bequests to “our
shop boys,” or to the “pupils,” apprentices who had by this time become
family members, or wills of artisans that left their wives and daughters
the instruments relating to the trade and the shop confirm the reality
of the work collaboration between husband and wife. many examples
could be cited, even at a higher level, of artisans who owned their shop
and were in a position to commercialize their products. the silk-worker
Zuanne Raimondi dalla Seda, in his 1556 will, entrusted his children, shop,
and workers to his wife, declaring that nobody could ever make claims
against her for the right to control the shop’s accounts, “because she has
a great intelligence.” the wife, angela, could make decisions regarding
the education and training of their sons, one of whom would eventually
54 Romano, Housecraft, p. 159; Bellavitis, Famille.