Woman and family in early modern age: the lawsuits for divorce in the ecclesiastical court of Cordoba

Abstract

To initiate a lawsuit for divorce before the ecclesiastical courts as a channel to publicly denounce the abuse suffered by wives and to try to resolve marital conflict, was a practice that gradually spread in modern age Cordobese society. The analysis of notebooks of divorce in the Ecclesiastical Court of Cordoba reveals important aspects of social and family behaviors at the time, such as rupture between moral doctrine and family practice or the inferior status of women. However, a gradual process of transformation in marital relationships where wives will try, with the help of this type of process, to regain their freedom and their social and economic status is evident.