ABSTRACT
Given the increasing significance of socialization in shaping the responsible citizen in sixteenth century Spain, it is not surprising that conduct manuals of the time should focus on children and their upbringing. Recognizing that children are the “parents” of their adult selves, the authors of conduct manuals accord a great deal of importance to the supervision of their intellectual formation and social activities. In fact, these works were essential in establishing codes of behavior aimed at producing men and women who were aware of their roles and how to enact them. That is, the abundant conduct literature of the late sixteenth century attempted to inculcate social norms that would result in improved forms of social interaction. Children who learned and assimilated these socially dictated behaviors at an early age would then become responsible and self-disciplined adults. The publication of Erasmus’s Colloquies (1531) was the catalyst for a series of writers such as Luis Vives, Francisco Osuna, and Antonio Guevara to set forth norms and accompanying conduct deemed both appropriate and necessary for the welfare of the individual and society at large. Directed largely to an elite readership and also an increasing middle class who had access to the texts, the didactic dialogue influenced by Erasmus’s writings on the education and upbringing of children became one of the primary genres for inculcating social values and served the dual purpose of instruction and entertainment. One of the earliest and most influential of these Erasmian works is Pedro Luján’s Coloquios matrimoniales [Marriage Colloquies]. 1
