Women in Armenian Community of Old Poland (the 17th and 18th Centuries)

A woman in the modern period was confined to her social role of a mother, wife and daughter. Armenian craftsmen’s and merchant’s wives in Poland enjoyed freedom, which gave them potential for greater influence in their marriages. Due to their husbands’ frequent departures, the wives’ time was divided between professional work and households management. It is possible that a seventeenth-century chronicler Jan Alembek is in fact pointing to independence when he is criticising the female Armenians for their tenacity. Alembek also imputes acrimony to elderly Armenians, which he seems to conclude from numerous petty court cases involving Armenians, which fill Armenian court records.