Abstract

In this essay I will analyze succession in family commercial activities from the perspective of the marital nucleus. I will reconstruct how those who invest their money in the shop organize their capital and protect it for the future, especially how the management of the company is defined after the owner’s death and how «the market» reacts when the new manager takes over. Through the documentation produced by Neapolitan merchants between the end of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century - wills, company contracts, voluntary jurisdiction agreements - this work aims to explore, from a further point of view, the history of the family and its economic articulations in the contemporary age.