On her own: subsistence strategies of single women in Mexico City in the late eighteenth century

Various studies have demonstrated that the situation of single women in colonial society was quite regrettable, because they were a vulnerable group, with limited agency, subject to male control, and with restricted job opportunities. However, this article shows that it is necessary to discuss the vision that has been had about these women, because this context did not represent a generality, since many of them had the capacity for self-sufficiency and found the means to survive without the need to have a husband, so they defended their position before society as single women. The objective of this article in to analyze the strategies that single women used to support themselves and find the means of subsistence. This Research is based on the analysis of the Mexico City Census of 1790, in order to elucidate what were the working conditions, domestic situations and migratory behavior of the group of women who did not marry and who managed to live on their own.