A Dowry Lottery to Commemorate a Royal Birth: A Populationist Project Illuminates the Lives of Adolescent Girls and Young Women in Eighteenth-Century Spain

Valentina Tikoff, DePaul University

Following the autumn 1771 birth of a crown prince, the Spanish Court instructed cities throughout Spain to refrain from the festivities customarily orchestrated to commemorate such an occasion and instead to sponsor dowries for poor “maidens,” thereby facilitating their marriages. It was framed as an initiative to promote families and population growth. While this royal directive has received little scholarly attention, most Spanish cities likely complied. The municipal government of Zaragoza (Saragossa), in Aragon, not only carried out such a lottery but also retained the files of the 336 applicants who asked to be included. These files are a treasure trove of information about adolescent girls and unmarried young women of modest means, who are often elusive in the historical record. This paper uses the application files, along with other contemporaneous documents, not only to chart the history of the lottery and its participants, but also and especially to illuminate aspects of young female lives in a regional urban setting during a critical life stage. The lottery instructions required that eligible applicants be unmarried females between the ages of 15 and 30 who were orphaned or otherwise needy, but also healthy and “of good customs,” and who had lived in the city or surrounding area for at least three years. Each applicant submitted a cover letter and documentation supporting her eligibility for the lottery—often with help from scribes, parish priests, character witnesses, and/or advocates who wrote on her behalf. This paper analyzes the applications quantitatively and qualitatively to explore a range of issues, including literacy, employment, geographical movement, relationships with relatives and others, age and status labels, the continuing role of juvenile charity homes in former wards’ lives, as well as ideas about poverty, need, and reputation as shaped by gender and age in late eighteenth-century Spain.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 55. Gender in Health Discourses, Health in Gender Discourses