ABSTRACT
Cultural assertions of women’s natural inferiority were more clearly reflected in legal norms that restricted elite women’s opportunities. During the early modern period, Iberian culture perpetuated long-held negative stereotypes of women. Although a pervasive cultural rhetoric that emphasised women’s inferior and sinful nature led to some restrictions on women’s activity, in general Iberian structures and institutions prescribed active roles for women and allowed for extensive female autonomy. Drawing on Roman and Patristic sources, male clerics and intellectuals, including Juan Luis Vives in his De Institutione Feminae Christianae and Fray Luis de Leon in La Perfecta Casada, advocated for harsh restrictions on women’s behaviour, emphasising women’s submission to male authority, as well as female obedience, humility, and silence. Between 1400 and 1820, Iberian legal norms, imperial strategies, religious activity, and cultural life both shaped and were shaped by gender roles and the expectations and actions of women. Gendered understandings of politics, society, and economics shaped the creation of the Iberian empires.
