Fragile and violated bodies, gender and social inequalities. Buenos Aires and the countryside at the beginning 19th century

Abstract

This paper analyses two judicial files from the early 19th century, corresponding to the archives of the Real Audiencia -specifically those de la Justicia del Crimen de Buenos Aires
and its hinterland-, which were under the direct jurisdiction of the Alcalde de la Santa Hermandad. e objective is to
analyse, from the perspective of the social history of justice and the intersectionality of gender, age and social rank - in the context of a society with strong community ties and a supposedly "low-intensity patriarchy" - the episodes of violence and abuse
exercised by males over girls' bodies. e extreme vulnerability of the girls led, in the cases studied, their parents, especially their mothers, to denounce and deploy a series of strategies
and actions before judicial officials, seeking moral reparation for the harm caused. A range of issues, which show the details of these judicial practices, the situations of conflict, the register
of emotions of those involved, but also the clear imprint of social and gender inequalities, in a context of political and cultural transition –which is far from being linear and markedly
disruptive– where the discourses of modernity begin to circulate
around the representations of childhood and the configuration
of the idea of motherhood. Among the series of questions and indications that these sources generate, a series of questions are raised, such as to what extent was there evidence of special
treatment of children (particularly girls) and what happened with
regard to the behaviour and ties of their parents, mothers and fathers, in this social reality. In short, it is a question of accounting –once again– for the persistent and diverse forms of domination over women in a specific time and space.