Entre a reclusão e o enfrentamento: a realidade da condição feminina no Espírito Santo a partir dos autos criminais (1845-1870): desmistificando estereótipos

Abstract

The research aims at standing out that, although there was, in the Brazilian society and more particularly in the Espírito Santo Province, between 1845 and 1870, temporal period of this dissertation, an idealized model of woman, which should be reached, such model was based on the conformism, on the docility, on the cautiousness, attitudes which were matched with the idea of submission of the female gender toward the male one, whose last goal was to make difficult that the masculine power could be confronted by women, in practice, with all the involvement in conflicts and quarrels. In present indications to the legal briefs, the research searches for analyzing and understanding the stories, women’s life trajectories and thus reminding the role played by society. It concludes that the world which surrounded men and women in that period studied in the work was characterized by conflicts, tensions, and accommodations, furthermore it proves that not every women were easily deceived to the masculine dominance, quite the opposite, in many situations, they confronted the men, even physically. This research uses as resource the criminal hearings found in the Espírito Santo State Public File. It searches for, in the characters speeches that are part f the criminal hearings, either masculine or feminine, victims, tortures, witnesses, police or judicial officers, highlighting the way women living in the Capixaba society at that period, found gaps to assume a role far from the idealized cautiousness model, docility and submission.