2019
Sylvie Hanicot-Bourdier, « Mujeres pecadoras ante los tribunales civiles vizcaínos de los siglos XVII, XVIII y XIX », HAL-SHS : études de genres, ID : 10670/1.aewkel
This paper deals with two basically feminine crimes in one of the three Spanish Basque provinces, from a social, legal and historical perspective: infanticides and children left to be found, as illustrative examples of the social violence suffered by the "disgraced" women and the products of their sexual “immorality”. To this end, we intend to focus on a traditional society that, based on strict moral standards imposed by the Catholic Church, rejects any physical relationship outside of marriage, the “fair sex” and their “bastards” being the main victims of sexual and religious intolerance. From this perspective, the unpublished archive of the prosecutions by the Corregidor de Vizcaya for infanticide or children left to be found between 1622 and 1899 shows that mothers who kill or abandon their newborn in 17th, 18th and 19th-century Biscay, commit a private crime provided with an important social and collective dimension, with the active or passive complicity of their social environment.