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 xvi
... kind of subjectivity and , at the same time , became the object of a very specific kind of subjec- tion . This passage , or this position — one that potentially places the wife alongside the husband — helps account for the inquisitorial ...
... kind of subjectivity and , at the same time , became the object of a very specific kind of subjec- tion . This passage , or this position — one that potentially places the wife alongside the husband — helps account for the inquisitorial ...
Page 5
... kind of geometry is at work here , one that suggests that the category “ wife ” is more than merely a particular ... kind of subjectivity , if also to a kind of subjection markedly different from the form that generally preceded it ...
... kind of geometry is at work here , one that suggests that the category “ wife ” is more than merely a particular ... kind of subjectivity , if also to a kind of subjection markedly different from the form that generally preceded it ...
Page 27
... kind of signified without a signifier or , at least , without the somatic signifier that , because of the premium placed on virginity ( narrowly defined as hymeneal integrity ) , one might expect . There is , in other words , no somatic ...
... kind of signified without a signifier or , at least , without the somatic signifier that , because of the premium placed on virginity ( narrowly defined as hymeneal integrity ) , one might expect . There is , in other words , no somatic ...
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Common terms and phrases
accident adultery analogy anxieties appear argue becomes blood Calderón called casa Castaño century charged cited color concerned conduct containment critical Cruz cultural desire discourses drama early modern Spain effect empeños example fact female figure final Fray Luis Fray Luis's gender giving Gutierre Gutierre's hand History Holy honor honra husband illegibility Inquisition inquisitorial inscribes interpretation italics Juana Inés kind language least legibility Leonor letter literal Madrid male mark marriage married material means médico Mencía's metaphor misogyny mujer nature particularly passage Pedro perfect perfecta casada performance perhaps play position possible precisely question reading relation represents respect rhetoric sacrament seems sense sexual Sor Juana sort Spanish specifically suggests textual things threat throughout tion trans Translation treatise University Press wife wife's body wives woman women World writes York