ABSTRACT
Spousal violence has been recognized by the World Health Organization as a major health problem for women all over the world. This chapter examines the homosocial bonds in Marc Ferrez’s short stories ‘Pega ela’ and the importance of virility in Marcelino Freire’s ‘Crime’, and analyses how these elements interact in the corroboration of spousal violence. The new literary and social engagement goes against the engrained machismo that results in so much damage to the societies, as chauvinism sees violence as a means to solve threats to masculine honor. Literary representation of spousal violence becomes an effective instrument in bringing about necessary social changes, in particular because literature imagines alternative realities that are metaphorically transmuted from textual to material reality. In cases of domestic violence, the victim’s sexual conduct was investigated since legislation considered it to be the cause of violent behavior by the aggressor.
