1910s-1940s: Adelsia’s Marriage and Women’s Financial Agency

1910s-1940s: (Adelsia’s Marriage and Women’s Financial Agency — Comhaire-Sylvain Recounting That Adelsia Who Married Her Plasaj Husband as His Second Wife During World War I Kept Any Money She Earned for Herself and Her Daughters and Gave None to Her Father — Through Marriage Women Could Also Expand Their Access If Not Ownership to the Lands of Their Family and That of Their Husband’s Family, but Marriage Also Being a Context for Cultural Exchange Sustenance and Celebration): Comhaire-Sylvain’s work highlighted that within the capitalist confines, women were at the intersections of financial and social exchange. Adelsia, who married her plasaj husband as his second wife during World War I, kept any money she earned for herself and her daughters and gave none to her father. Through marriage, women could also expand their access — if not ownership — to the lands of their family and their husband’s family. But in addition to the financial navigation of wealth, marriage was also a context for cultural exchange, sustenance, and celebration — Adelsia’s refusal to share her earnings with her father was not defiance but sovereignty, the married woman carving out an economy within the economy that no civil code had authored.