Women in 18th Century Malta

“Yosanne Vella has been a trailblazer in the study of women’s history in Malta. This volume collects her essays together and serves as an excellent introduction to the female experience in eighteenth-century Malta.”

History Professor Elaine Chalus, University of Liverpool

Yosanne Vella has been researching Maltese women in Malta in the eighteenth century for the past 30 years. Throughout these years she has published various papers in different academic journals, both locally and abroad. This book is an attempt to bring an updated version of all this research work into one collection and provide a good background to what life was like for women in that century.
This book brings together various aspects of women’s lives including the work they did, their involvement in religion and magic as well as eighteenth-century Maltese women’s interaction and encounters with other members of their society, their crimes as well as when they themselves fell victims of crime. All the evidence shows that the attitude of Maltese society towards women with regard their family honour, social and legal status, position in the family and in religious matters was no different from any other South European Catholic country.
Maltese women were not personally very much directly involved in any great movements or major political events in the eighteenth century. They suffered many restrictions and limitations on legal and social rights but still they were neither invisible, inaudible nor unimportant. Their contribution in various sectors to the growth and development of their society should not be overlooked or undervalued and this book addresses their role in eighteenth-century Malta.