Arquivos de (in)felicidade e (des)obediências : mulheres, casamento, família e desquite na cidade de Cuiabá (1934-1971)

Abstract

The role of women in the family, in heterosexual marriage, and in divorce in the mid-20th century are analyzed in this work, as well as the violence inflicted on these same women as a result of these patriarchal institutions. To this end, I utilize a documentary scope consisting of divorce cases dated between 1934 and 1971, available at the Public Archive of Mato Grosso in Cuiabá, data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), and Brazilian civil and penal legislation, both prior to and in force during the period covered here. It was necessary to understand how violence against women is established within compulsory heterosexuality, conjugality, and motherhood, which are masked as the legitimate paths to female happiness but operate from a male-dominated system that, contrary to being hegemonic, is constituted by multiplicities and individualities operating from an unequal power dynamic. In contrast to the victimized perspective, my research also focuses on the writing of personal letters by women attached to divorce cases, understanding them as spaces for self-expression and self-writing – as both constituting and constituted by the subjects who write them, as movements attempting to break from the male-dominated center, considering that, historically, in modern Western society, women have been silenced. Following gender studies, it is necessary to consider how the path of unhappiness, disobedience, and transgression taken by some of these women has revealed itself as a path to freedom.