Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Wives walking away
T2 - concubinage, adultery, and violence in late colonial Bahia
AU - Nascimento, Selina Patel
PY - 2022/2/23
Y1 - 2022/2/23
N2 - This article re-examines colonial Latin American violence and adultery through the lens of concubinage and female migration. It re-evaluates heterosexual domestic violence, the socially-acceptable conditions for women to leave relationships, and the extent to which male partners were deemed culpable for their actions. It adjusts traditional narratives that dichotomise wives and concubines to instead consider wives as concubines and how this repositioning of their social status opened new opportunities for female migration, invited tacit social acceptance, and affected concubines’ power, honour, and status in their local communities. Studying the lives of three adulterous concubines, this study argues that not only was solitary migration a fairly common experience for concubines in late colonial Bahia, but that such mobility constituted a wider strategy of feminine honour negotiation through the use of ‘honour-neutral spaces’. This article offers a new perspective on gendered experiences of mobility, domestic security, and violence in late colonial Bahia.
AB - This article re-examines colonial Latin American violence and adultery through the lens of concubinage and female migration. It re-evaluates heterosexual domestic violence, the socially-acceptable conditions for women to leave relationships, and the extent to which male partners were deemed culpable for their actions. It adjusts traditional narratives that dichotomise wives and concubines to instead consider wives as concubines and how this repositioning of their social status opened new opportunities for female migration, invited tacit social acceptance, and affected concubines’ power, honour, and status in their local communities. Studying the lives of three adulterous concubines, this study argues that not only was solitary migration a fairly common experience for concubines in late colonial Bahia, but that such mobility constituted a wider strategy of feminine honour negotiation through the use of ‘honour-neutral spaces’. This article offers a new perspective on gendered experiences of mobility, domestic security, and violence in late colonial Bahia.
KW - Concubine
KW - gender
KW - adultery
KW - colonial Brazil
KW - domestic violence
KW - marriage
KW - migration
KW - honour
KW - social attitudes
U2 - 10.1080/09612025.2021.1908505
DO - 10.1080/09612025.2021.1908505
M3 - Journal article
VL - 31
SP - 294
EP - 315
JO - Women's History Review
JF - Women's History Review
SN - 0961-2025
IS - 2
ER -