A assistência às mulheres nas misericórdias portuguesas (séculos XVI-XVIII)

• Autor(a) principal: Araújo, Maria Marta Lobo de
• Data de Publicação: 2008
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/1822/8768
• topic: Mulheres; Honra; Pobreza; Caridade; Misericórdia; Honour; Women; Poverty; Charity

This paper aims at analysing the assistance provided to women by the Portuguese Misericórdia institutions, along the Modern Age. We are especially underlining the support given to young orphans in the years before their marriages, as well as to widows and older women. Since they were considered as fragile and unable to preserve their honour all by themselves, women were helped along the most dangerous periods of their lives, in their adolescence and when they became widows. They were also helped by the last years of their lives, when growing old, in a way to minimize the unavoidable difficulties. Charity towards women was understood as a means of salvation, and therefore aimed at preserving them in chastity and dignity, thereby corresponding to the feminine ideals of post-Trento society.