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Wife and Mother: The Vision of Women in Catholic Spanish Press (XIX-XX)
| This paper aims to study the evolution of the Church discourse on women in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Spain. Firstly, in order to understand the context in which the family developed, three key elements are studied: the Church status, which was still strongly influenced by the guidelines issued by the Council of Trent; the family status and the women role, swinging between the 19th century heritage and the 20th century emerging changes; and the reality of the press, with special attention to the Catholic journalism which was beginning to be considered as a tool for evangelization and spreading the doctrine. The relationship between these three elements is essential to understand the reality of the family in the Spain. Secondly, it is necessary to analyze the model advocated by the Catholic Church for families: known as ‘God's plan’, it was a theoretical example which was difficult to be applied to families at that time. Thus, the instructions that appeared on the Catholic press were the fight against the secularisation of the society, the perpetuation of the Christian family at home, the exaltation of marriage and the role of the spouses (the father as lord of the manor and the mother obeying both God and the husband). Therefore, by studying the family through the press in Murcia in this age some not well known aspects are studied: the evolution of family forms, the women role, the social unrest and the Catholic Church’s attempt to survive and perpetuate in a changing society.
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