Widows and unmarried women as taxpayers in England before 1800

A variety of taxes levied at various dates between the 1540s and the early nineteenth century are analysed to ascertain whether the frequency with which widows and unmarried women are listed as taxpayers matches the ratio between the numbers of widows and unmarried women and the number of men in the adult population. Examination of the tax assessments indicates that the proportion of taxpayers who were women often fell well below their proportion in the general population. This applies in the case of all taxes levied between the sixteenth and early nineteenth centuries and regardless of whether a tax was assessed primarily on goods, houses occupied, or land owned or occupied. That double the proportion of female than of male householders were exempted from payment of the hearth tax on houses they occupied in the second half of the seventeenth century indicates that many women maintained households on very depleted resources. However, the proportion of taxpayers who were women amongst those paying the least tax did not usually exceed the proportion of women amongst those paying most tax.