Because a married woman was a minor under the guardianship of her husband, Maria Augustin chose to remain unmarried in order to be able to succeed her father as the head of the firm.
In 1790 her father formally retired, resigned his guild membership and transferred his business to his daughters name.
The city authorities of Turku refused to grant Maria Augustin a business permit on the grounds that she was unmarried.
While unmarried women were often given dispensations from these regulations, these dispensations were normally only issued to unmarried women in desperate circumstances to manage a small business for their personal support, and this was in no way applicable to Maria Augustin, who managed the second largest shipping firm in the city.
She was one of the richest business people in Finland, and was taxed the same way as a male member of the guild in her position would have been.