About women's property: kinship structures and gender relations

Medieval society is characterized by a system of cognatic kinship and by the practice of what Jack Goody has called diverging devolution. However, because of the social superiority of men over women, the major assets of the kindred tended to go to the former without ever excluding the latter. The women receive first of all dowries, but also legacies and they can also be principal heirs in the absence of brothers. The Genoese data corroborate these main characteristics and show that, in an undeniably patriarchal system, in which they participated fully, women were recognized as having a certain agency.