The place of women in butchery: the role of the spouse in the French butcher's retail business (1860-1960)

• Published in: History of retailing and consumption (Abingdon, England) Vol. 3; no. 3; pp. 184 - 200
• Main Author: Leteux, Sylvain
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 02.09.2017
• Subjects: Butcher; meat; retail; shop; women
• ISSN: 2373-518X; 2373-5171
• DOI: 10.1080/2373518X.2017.1377575

Though butchery has mostly been associated with men and male values, women have had an important place in the world of meat, both in wholesale (slaughterhouses) and retail butchery (shops). If, for a long time, women were confined to rather thankless and secondary tasks in slaughterhouses, butchers' wives have had an important role alongside their husbands in the trade's management. The traditional domestic duties of women such as cooking, laundry and cleaning the premises were complemented by an important economic role (keeping the books, accounting and the relations with customers), an often disregarded part in the training of apprentices including the transmission of the trade's moral values, and the supervision of staff during the many absences of the master butcher. Moreover, female endogamy played an important role in the inter-generational transmission of the butcher trade, particularly for daughters of butchers. Finally, widowhood offered women a real opportunity for economic independence, encouraged by the solidarity mechanisms developed by the profession in the nineteenth century.