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Nancy Locklin, Women's Work and Identity in Eighteenth-Century Brittany.

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Nancy Locklin, Women's Work and Identity in Eighteenth-Century Brittany (Aldershot: Ashgate 2007)

NANCY LOCKLIN'S WORK provides a detailed and nuanced analysis of women's work and personal lives in eighteenth-century Brittany. Drawing on a wide variety of source materials, from demographic statistics found in head tax roles, to court cases and personal correspondence, she draws a broad picture of the activities of early modern Breton women. Locklin offers a careful reading which negotiates the tensions between conventional understandings of the constraints and limitations experienced by early modern women and a broader interpretation that recognizes women's resourcefulness and tenacity, even in the face of substantial cultural and institutional barriers. Thus, while she can acknowledge the value and importance of studies that have posited the powerful structural limitations that circumscribed women's lives, she is also interested in demonstrating the ways that women have managed to successfully navigate within those confines.

Locklin's methodological approach and ultimate conclusions are both founded on the basic premise that women's lives are far more complex than their gender alone might suggest. "While studying women," she observes, "we must try to ignore the fact that our subjects...

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