With a sharp eye for detail, Raisa Maria Toivo explores the gender implications of the complex system of household management and public representation in which seventeenth-century Finnish women and men negotiated their positions. From specific case studies of Finnish peasant women, Toivo broadens her narrative to include historiographical discussion on the history of witchcraft, on women's and gender history and on early modern social history, shedding new light on each theme.

Raisa Maria Toivo is a research fellow at the Tampere University Institute for Social Sciences and The Department of History at the University of Tampere, Finland.

Contents: Preface; Introduction; The widow farmer witch: Agata Pekatytÿr 1670-1700; Witches and power; Work, status and power; Family, women's status and power; Conclusions: mother, wife and witch; Appendix; Bibliography; Index.