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Honor and Violence in Golden Age Spain

Online ISBN:
9780300151695
Print ISBN:
9780300126853
Publisher:
Yale University Press
Book

Honor and Violence in Golden Age Spain

Published online:
31 October 2013
Published in print:
11 November 2008
Online ISBN:
9780300151695
Print ISBN:
9780300126853
Publisher:
Yale University Press

Abstract

Early modern Spain has long been viewed as having a culture obsessed with honor, where a man resorted to violence when his or his wife's honor was threatened, especially through sexual disgrace. This book overturns this idea, arguing that the way Spanish men and women actually behaved was very different from the behavior depicted in dueling manuals, law books, and “honor plays” of the period. Drawing on criminal and other records to assess the character of violence among non-elite Spaniards, the author finds that appealing to honor was a rhetorical strategy, and that insults, gestures, and violence were all part of a varied repertoire which allowed both men and women to decide how to dispute issues of truth and reputation.

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