Abstract

SANCHEZ MENCHERO, Mauricio. The correspondence of Hispanic women in the 16th and 17th centuries: representations and strategies from travel, abandonment and writing. Inter disciplina [online]. 2022, vol.10, n.28, pp.543-569.  Epub Dec 05, 2022. ISSN 2448-5705.  https://doi.org/10.22201/ceiich.24485705e.2022.28.83246.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, written culture in Spain and its American colonies found the epistolary form to be a very valuable mean of colonial transatlantic and American communication. Time and distance manifest in the letters sent for various reasons from senders distributed up and down the peninsula and across the continent, always awaiting an answer: information, requests or suits. In the case of messages from women -private or with legal intent-, these constitute a rich source of study to understand and explain the political, economic and sociocultural strategies that they developed in their married or family lives in the context of ecclesiastical and civil legislation of a counter-reformist nature. This is writing coming from women in the various traditional female roles they played as widows, mothers, wives, lovers, single women or daughters, but who knew how to face up and how to act despite the limitations imposed by parental or marital control, the abandonment or lack of hereditary lineage or communication problems due to bumpy travel and incipient postal service.

Keywords : travels; women; abandonment; written culture; correspondence; letters of request.

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