Religiosity, Leisure and "Entertainment", occupying the time of the honest woman (Fr. Alonso Remón, XVII Century)

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of leisure and entertainment (recreation) of women in the seventeenth century, according to major writers on the family (on family topics) of the Modern Age. It focuses on the advices (warnings) for the use of the leisure time of the deemed “honest women”. And among moralists, highlights Fray Alonso Remón, mercedarian chronicler and writer of comedies, well known at the time of Lope de Vega. One of his many moral writings, serves us as a guide of “educational” and recreational proposals aimed at women. In it he will provide leisure and entertainment tasks of selective character, classified by age, status and gender. An estamental society, patriarchal and therefore unequal, which defends different forms of entertainment according to the women status. Issues that, in fact, squarely connect with the religious models of femininity, and in which gender and status ratify the social stratification criteria advocated by law.