Is bread male or female? Gender and power

Abstract

On August 6, 1742, Magdalena Grech appears for the first time in the court room of the Magna Curia Castellania. During her deposition Grech explained how her aggressive behaviour and that of her two daughters towards Ludovico Pace and his wife was instigated by the threat of a letter addressed to her husband who was off island on business. Pace, an acquaintance of the Grech family, decided to write a letter to the merchantmen Bartholomeo Grech to advise him about his family's unorthodoxy. Ludovico Pace believed that Bartholomeo should refrain from providing his family with the necessary means to buy bread. The role of bread within such situations reflects more than what at face value might be identified as male chauvinism or even economic imperialism. An examination of breadways - behaviours and beliefs surrounding the entire process of bread production and consumption - help us explore the nature of gender roles and power relations during the second half of the eighteenth century.