This article examines the experiences of widows of master craftsmen in eighteenth-century Paris to argue that widows were not critically limited in their social or economic roles by gender attitudes or the dynamic of the family economy. Using source material from the Minutier Central and the Châtelet series of the Archives Nationales de Paris, it argues that widows of master craftsmen were more privileged than all women and most men in this society thanks to their control of family assets, most importantly the title of master they claimed from the guilds of their deceased husbands. It also shows how widows exercised their privileges, and the ways their actions were at times limited by social expectations.