Perfect Wives, Other Women: Adultery and Inquisition in Early Modern SpainDuke University Press, 13. veebr 2001 - 328 pages In Perfect Wives, Other Women Georgina Dopico Black examines the role played by women’s bodies—specifically the bodies of wives—in Spain and Spanish America during the Inquisition. In her quest to show how both the body and soul of the married woman became the site of anxious inquiry, Dopico Black mines a variety of Golden Age texts for instances in which the era’s persistent preoccupation with racial, religious, and cultural otherness was reflected in the depiction of women. Subject to the scrutiny of a remarkable array of gazes—inquisitors, theologians, religious reformers, confessors, poets, playwrights, and, not least among them, husbands—the bodies of perfect and imperfect wives elicited diverse readings. Dopico Black reveals how imperialism, the Inquisition, inflation, and economic decline each contributed to a correspondence between the meanings of these human bodies and “other” bodies, such as those of the Jew, the Moor, the Lutheran, the degenerate, and whoever else departed from a recognized norm. The body of the wife, in other words, became associated with categories separate from anatomy, reflecting the particular hermeneutics employed during the Inquisition regarding the surveillance of otherness. Dopico Black’s compelling argument will engage students of Spanish and Spanish American history and literature, gender studies, women’s studies, social psychology and cultural studies. |
From inside the book
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Page 28
... sexual or somatic register that Covarrubias points to ) suggests read- ing a narrative of adultery inscribed in the use of the term “ adultery , ” as if the lexical signifier were , in some sense , unfaithful to its literal ( or at ...
... sexual or somatic register that Covarrubias points to ) suggests read- ing a narrative of adultery inscribed in the use of the term “ adultery , ” as if the lexical signifier were , in some sense , unfaithful to its literal ( or at ...
Page 91
... ( sexual ) traffic between interior and exterior . 61 In La perfecta casada , images of sexual penetration and infection that suffuse textual warnings against pilgrim entrances to the domes- tic sphere readily lend themselves to readings ...
... ( sexual ) traffic between interior and exterior . 61 In La perfecta casada , images of sexual penetration and infection that suffuse textual warnings against pilgrim entrances to the domes- tic sphere readily lend themselves to readings ...
Page 256
... sexual purity ; the association , then , between honor and limpieza need not be as " transferential " as McKendrick suggests , since adulterous wives were in fact tried by the inquisition for their in- fidelity : “ A juzgar por los ...
... sexual purity ; the association , then , between honor and limpieza need not be as " transferential " as McKendrick suggests , since adulterous wives were in fact tried by the inquisition for their in- fidelity : “ A juzgar por los ...
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Common terms and phrases
accident adultery aligned analogy anxieties argue baroque bien blood buena Calderón casa Castaño Christ comedia conduct manuals containment converso cosmetic Counter Reformation Covarrubias cross-dressing Cruz cuerpo cultural dagger desire Dios discourses early modern Spain empeños Enrique esto eucharistic female body feminine Fray Luis Fray Luis's gender Gutierre Gutierre's hand hermeneutic Hispanic hombre honor dramas honor plays honra Howard Bloch husband illegibility Inquisition inquisitorial inscribes interpretation italics Juan legibility lengua Leonor limpieza de sangre literal Luis de León Madrid makeup male marital marriage married means médico Mencía's Mencía's body metaphor Mexico misogyny Morisco mujer nombres de Cristo palabras passage Pedro perfect wife perfecta casada perhaps problematic pues question ramera reading relation Renaissance rhetoric sacrament semiotic sense sexual sino somatic Sor Juana Inés sort Spanish specifically suggests Tesoro textual threat tion trans transgression Translation transubstantiation transvestism treatise University Press vida wife's body wives woman women words