Den opassliga hustrun

Handlingsutrymme i narrativ och praktik i företagarfamiljen

Abstract

This article investigates the possibilities for a corporate wife to create a room of her own, beyond the duties that follow such a position. Previous research has often focused on the public/private divide regarding family businesses. With the example of Hedda Ekman, the wife of corporate owner Johan Ekman, it is here argued that the female body is crucial to the families of corporate dynasties during the late 1880s to early 1900s, an era characterized by industrial capitalism. The order of succession is essential to the persistence of the family business, which brings the question of reproduction to the fore. Through the narrative of one particular corporate wife, Hedda Ekman, and with Foucault’s notion of subject positions, the article discusses class, gender and sexuality. With the female body as the point of departure the demarcation between business and family is thus put into question.