Whore or Woman?

Perhaps the most significant period in Spanish history is the Reconquista, the reclamation of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors, significant due to the lasting legacy imposed by the nature of this reclamation and the system and style of power distribution that proceeded in its wake. As noted in analyzing the divided unification of kingdoms through the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabel, the manner of their marriage union while maintaining separate dominions influenced the manner of rule upheld as a unified Spain, or rather a unified state of many autonomous and distinct Spains. This greatly reflected the historical development of communities under Moorish rule, with isolated communities in the North functioning independently of one another.

Through this style of development, distinct cultural and political communities grew, and the manner of the unification of Spain through Ferdinand and Isabel’s marriage furthered and perpetuated the creation and upholding of these distinct communities. Further, having noted the connection between the decentralized monarchical rule and that between the state and local communities, these forces of decentralization as historical and cultural influences penetrated to the systems of governance, power, and honor within the community and within the home.

This decentralization is particularly evident through the adoption of fueros, negotiations of special rights and legal practices that demonstrated the authority of the Crown but also the authority of the kingdom (and even local community). Fueros indicated that legitimate authority was bound by negotiated consent. However, due to constraints of geographic rule, flexibility and autonomy most ignorantly characterize the Spanish governance system in this period; this included both fueros and local lack of enforcement of national policies promoted through the monarch (directly or indirectly), including policies and expectations of the Catholic Church.

One of the most glaring examples of this decentralized political, cultural system is the promotion of “proper” values, principally the independent consideration of virtue as the central contributor to a woman’s sense of honor. Formerly, analyzing early modern Spanish values through literature produced in the period as well as the influences of the Catholic Reformation, scholars firmly believed that female chastity was central to conceptions of both male and female cultural models, as the texts of the time supported the notion that women were weak and sinful and that marriage served a positive purpose both for individuals and society in a woman’s subservience to her husband (Poska 136-138).

However, as noted by Poska in “Elusive Virtue: Rethinking the Role of Female Chastity in Early Modern Spain,” it seems clear that this value, promoted by the Church and upheld in elite writing of the time, does not accurately reflect local beliefs and practices, as women often did not marry, women were not socially isolated from men to promote chastity and further the male sense of honor, documentation supporting the frequency of prenuptial sex is extensive, and yet this documentation, including legal documents and social contracts, does not suggest that female sexual behavior carried with it a social stigma. Poska declares that there was a “significant disjunction between early modern rhetoric and sexual practice. The restrictive discourse on female sexuality and honor favored by Spanish elites and enthusiastically instigated by the early modern historians had little resonance among the majority of the Spanish population” (136). Poska’s ideas about how this cultural more should be reexamined, considering demographics, economics, class distinctions, and regional differentiation, are particularly interesting.

In line with Scott’s “Credit, Debt, and Honor in Castille, 1600-1650,” Poska demonstrates that female virtue depended much more upon a woman’s economic value, such as her access to credit, than upon chastity. These practices directly contradict the sense of gendered virtue promoted by the Church and state and support the idea of both cultural and political decentralization in Spain, with communities designating their own values. As Polska stated in regards to this, “Only as we study early modern people in their own context, neither completely isolated from larger societal issues not completely subordinated to them, can we come to a better understanding of women’s roles, women’s bodies, and the complex social forces on their lives” (Poska 146).