Women Owners in Mexico City during the conjuncture of Liberal Reform

Abstract

The economic changes promoted by the Law on the Confiscation of Civic and
Ecclesiastical Rural and Urban Farms, written in June 1856 by the Minister of
the Treasury, Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, transformed women’s access to property,
however, it did not completely brake the limits to the exercise of this right.
This article contextualizes the arguments of 29 women who gradually achieved
ownership of the assets awarded in the autumn of 1856 through a documentary
research in the Ancient Collections of the Historical Archive of Notaries of
Mexico City, and the analysis of legal change with a gender perspective. The
interpretation underlines the importance of the economic sphere to understand
social change.