The Culture of Gender-Based Violence in Early Modern Urban Society: Male-to-Female Spousal Abuse in Eighteenth-Century Madrid in a Global Context

Gender-based violence is now recognized as a global social problem. Worldwide figures on the number of women killed by male spouses reflect the magnitude of the phenomenon. However, its impact was greater in the past, as academic research in early modern Europe and America shows. Such was the case in Madrid. GENVIOMADRID examines the prevalence and evolution of gender-based violence in eighteenth-century Madrid to assess its impact, noting shifts and continuities in the way it was viewed and condemned by the courts and society. Violence against women in eighteenth-century Madrid remains an under-researched topic that requires further analysis. Based on extensive archival research and an interdisciplinary and comparative approach, GENVIOMADRID aims to fill this gap focusing on the study of marital violence against women and examining the case of Madrid in a wider European and global context. It favours a comparison between Madrid and major colonial cities in Spanish America to identify the social and cultural factors that influence changes in the incidence of, and responses to, gender-based violence in societies that, while very different, shared certain legal frameworks, judicial institutions and penal practices. By addressing key contemporary issues and placing gender-based violence in a historical context, it offers an empirical and theoretical background for tackling this social problem today. The action will be carried out at Harvard University in the outgoing phase, supervised by Prof. Tamar Herzog, and at the University of Cantabria during the return phase, under the supervision of Prof. Tomás A. Mantecón Movellán. It will provide interdisciplinary research training in early modern gendered legal and judicial history, colonial Latin American history, and global and transnational history, under the expert guidance of the supervisors, as well as transferable skills. Project results will be made available through a strong dissemination and communication program.