This dissertation examines the discussion that took place during the 19th century surrounding men’s violence against their wives, as well as the contemporary norms and ideas that shaped people’s understanding of, and ability to deal with the problem. The overall objective is to examine how cultural conceptions of gender, class, violence and power (relationships) were created and expressed during the period 1810–1880. I approach this objective through an examination of how men’s violence against their wives was reported and treated as marital conflict, both within local religious arenas (such as church councils and cathedral chapters) and in the Riksdag of the Estates. With a longer diachronic analysis of the discussions in the Riksdag of the Estates con-cerning propositions for changes in the law regarding marital conflict and divorce during the period 1828–1860, the dissertation shows that men’s violence against their wives as well as other forms of male misuse of power were neither made invisible, privatised nor marginalised in the public discussion in Sweden, which previous research has maintained. In contrast to previous research, the dissertation also shows that political attention to wife-beating and the reform work that took place in 19th century Sweden cannot be entirely characterised as a secularised project. The attention politicians directed towards the problem took place in a re-ligious context where the clergy, in practice, through their experience of dealing with wife-beating and other unsatisfactory conditions in marital relations, took the initiative and were instigators in the political process that after the middle of the century brought changes in the law on marital conflict and divorce. The dissertation’s investigations of how marital conflict and violence were dealt with by church councils and cathedral chapters also show how those involved talked about marital conflict based on competing ideas of gender, class, violence and marriage. The dissertation supports previous research that has demonstrated how men’s violence against their wives tended to be made invisible when it was interpreted and dealt with as marital conflict within the religious arenas. However, the results of the dissertation open up for other interpreta-tional perspectives regarding how violence was made invisible in the past, demonstrating that the prevailing understanding of violence that existed through concepts such as conflict and maltreatment may rather have resulted in an exposition of violence, which also included other forms of marital violence and oppression that were not physical. With a starting point in a marital ideology that perceived marriage as being in principle life-long, the intention of the church’s warnings during conflicts was to mediate, even in cases that included men’s vio-lence against their wives. The principal significance was not to make it easier for wives to remove themselves from their husbands’ violence, but to preserve the sanctity of marriage. Despite this, the study of praxis during the period shows that the church councils in particu-lar could assume more flexible and pragmatic attitudes towards the law. In their attempts to find solutions to their congregation’s unsatisfactory state of marital problems, they could even pursue actions that conflicted with legal provisions.

This study is a feminist reading of Jane Smiley's novel A Thousand Acres. It focuses on the Cook sisters and their lives in a farming community at a time that coincides with the end of second wave feminism. In particular, it pays attention to the absence of sisterhood among the three sisters in the novel. It analyses first each individual sister including their different approaches to sisterhood and then their failure to unite in the type of strategic, politically motivated notion of sisterhood that was promoted by second wave feminism.          By looking at different reasons why the sisters cannot establish a strong sisterhood my essay aims to demonstrate that A Thousand Acres not only criticises patriarchal society in its portrayal of the Cook family but also, and more importantly, that it criticises second wave feminism by pointing out its failure in terms of promoting a sense of sisterhood.

This thesis is set within a framework of the revivalist Christians’ Inner Mission, and presents as a case-study their mission to conscripts stationed in military exercise areas and garrison towns across Sweden. The revivalists’ evangelical zeal is given special attention. This is in contrast to much of the earlier research, which worked with the secularization paradigm formulated by the founders of sociology. Conscription in the early 20th century was regarded in various civilian and military circles as a platform for social and national integration, although these attitudes remain largely unstudied in Sweden’s case. Those engaged in missionizing the army were also drawn to this ‘School of the Nation’. The thesis shows that the motives of those involved in this home mission to soldiers were grounded in religion. However, the expansive missionary work was strengthened by the positions held by its male protagonists in the power structures of society. The mission was maintained by social contacts between an informal alliance of upper-class officers from among the mission’s military members, and by civilian missionaries from lower social classes. A decisive contextual factor for the army-mission as an educational project was that Sweden remained at peace. The civilian contribution to the mission grew as it spread more widely through the country. It is argued in this thesis that the soldiers’ homes were dominated by a discourse of domesticity. This discourse designated a place, a relationship, and a state of mind for the conscript during his free time at the military base. The missionaries were convinced that contact with the domestic and family values of civilian society should be preserved by the soldiers’ homes. The discourse of domesticity also looked ahead to the conscript’s subsequent life in civilian society: the missionaries wished to train up conscripts to be sober, moral family breadwinners.

The present dissertation deals with attitudes towards rape in early modern Sweden. The narratives from rape cases show certain similarities and differences, all of which provide a basis for a categorization. In somewhat generalized form, the documents identify a cast of six different-type characters: the unruly soldier, the despotic household head, the foul-minded hired hand, the honorable wife, the naive servant girl and the innocent under-aged girl. Reports by representatives of any one of these types, display a common view, judgmental elements often included. Views of rape between 1600 and 1800 were subject to changes of four kinds. One is, the woman is made an active subject, whose will and actions come under sharper focus in rape trials. A second type can be termed the sexualizing of the crime, where attack and assault aspects of a rape crime diminish, but purely sexual aspects increase, in importance. Amounting to a third change is growing interest in the remaining physical aspects of the rape crime. With this type as with the second type, brighter light falls on material and physical sides of the crime, while social matters and matters of honor became of less concern. A fourth change is that discussions of male authority run high at the outset of the period under study, but in time give way to talk of female qualities and morals. On the conceptual level the change can be interpreted as due to the shift which now linked violence and sexual practice directly to the individual and his/her morals, instead of as before to his/her social position in patriarchal society. On the immediate plane the actions of a single male individual were under review in a rape case, but on a larger scale the main issue was how much authority and power the male should have by virtue of the position he held. There was yet a scale where questions lurked concerning the legitimacy of the patriarchal system as a whole and of political power in any form.

The thesis will focus on the issue of slavery and its reflection in Brazilian society and in Brazilian historiography of the 20th century. This phenomenon decisively affected the Brazilian history, society and culture. The work focuses on the personality and work of Gilberto Freyre, whose review of the importance of slavery in Brazilian history marked an important intellectual turning point. This paper is an analysis of his most important work. The final section focuses on the most important Freyre's theory and the opinions of other experts.

Le but de ce mémoire est d’analyser la condition et la conception des femmes dans le roman Le Ventre de l’Atlantique de Fatou Diome. Cette analyse est effectuée à la lumière des travaux de plusieurs écrivaines africaines. Fatou Diome évoque et dénonce la position de la femme sur l’île de Niodior au travers de nombreuses thématiques telles que : la soumission, le mariage forcé, la stérilité, la polygamie, la société́ patriarcale, la femme traditionnelle, la femme moderne, la liberté́, la femme en tant qu’objet et victime des coutumes et traditions. / The purpose of this essay is to analyze the condition and conception of women in Fatou Diome's novel Le Ventre de l’Atlantique. This analysis is done in light of the work of several African women writers. Fatou Diome evokes and denounces the position of the women on the island of Niodior through many topics such as submission, forced marriage, infertility, polygamy, patriarchal society, traditional versus modern woman, freedom, women as objects as victims of customs and traditions.

Ce travail vise initialement le rôle et l’image de Zahra/Ahmed qui représente la femme marocaine bucolique dans le roman La Nuit sacrée de Tahar Ben Jelloun qui lutte pour chercher son identité féminine perdue. Pour cela, nous avons utilisé au début de notre analyse le schéma de Greimas car il nous a aidé à montrer le rôle de Zahra/Ahmed dans le récit. Nous avons également approfondi notre travail en analysant l’environnement familial de Zahra et ses relations, la libération du corps, l’aspect religieux, l’obéissance dans le but de confirmer la tragédie de Zahra qui reflète la femme rurale au Maroc. Enfin, notre travail s’est achevé avec une étude sur le statut de la femme dans la société traditionnelle, à travers le personnage principal du récit, dans les sociétés traditionnelles patriarcales dans lesquelles l’homme instaure son pouvoir sur la femme. / This work initially aims at the role and image of Zahra / Ahmed, who represents the bucolic Moroccan woman in the novel The Sacred Night by Tahar Ben Jelloun who struggles to find her lost female identity. For this, we used Greimas’s scheme at the beginning of our analysis because it helped us to show the role and the dramatic situation of Zahra / Ahmed in the story. We also deepened our work by analysing the family environment of Zahra and its relations, the liberation of the body, the religious aspect, obedience in order to confirm the tragedy of rural women in Morocco. Finally, our work ends with a study of the status of women in a traditional society in which man establishes his power over woman.

Pride and Prejudice has remained one of the most popular literary since it was published due to the concept of shifting social structure. Marriage is one of the most critiqued concepts by different scholars, giving their views on what would be the implication portrayed by Elizabeth Bennet and her influence on Mr. Darcy to marry for love. Marriage is considered the central theme of the novel as different characters engaged in various types of relationships. Among the female characters, Elizabeth proves that wealth and social standing are not mandatory advantages in the intricate state of marriage. Appropriately, I shall frame my discussion of Elizabeth’s situation in the context of Feminist Literary Criticism Theory. The theory advocates for a paradigm shift in women’s position in society. The research argues that Elizabeth is a forerunner of change. She survives the afflictions women faced in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in a male-dominated culture. Elizabeth contradicts other women characters in the novel who are more accustomed to social formalities. As a harbinger of change, she advocates for a feminist mindset and a transformation of the roles and positions of women in society. The multifaceted role that she plays in the novel normalizes the ideology that women deserve the same treatment as men and that they too can achieve their goals by deviating from gender norms imposed by traditions. / <p>Slutgiltigt godkännandedatum: 2022-11-14</p>

This Master thesis focuses on the dynamic of the development and rethinking of the concept of the traditional Latino patriarchal family built up around male dominance. This work explores the changes of the traditional concept under the pressure of society of the United States in novels written in English by authors of Latino origin awarded for their novels after 2000. The most significant of them being Junot Díaz and his The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; the other two are Mexican Female authors Stella Pope Duarte with If I Die in Juárez and Reyna Grande with Across a Hundred Mountains. The first part is purely theoretical, stemming from the concepts of traditional Latino masculinity, the role of the female and children in the patriarchal family in order to explain the clash of values and family crises which Latinos undergo once they are confronted with the different system of values of the United States and the consequences for all family members. In the second part, all three books are analyzed on the basis of the male - female polarity. Consequences for families are explored as seen by Latino/a authors. Finally, solutions and possible ways of escaping the vicious spiral of violence and tensions created by the changed paradigm penetrating the Latino family life as suggested in the novels are...

Bildungsroman refere-se a uma forma romanesca de origem germânica. Trata-se de uma forma literária que expressa o conflito entre o indivíduo e o mundo de um personagem durante seu período de formação (Bildung). No século XX, esse gênero firmou-se como um conceito produtivo em quase todas as literaturas nacionais de origem europeia ou americana. Neste trabalho, analisamos momentos relevantes da trajetória de formação da protagonista, Margarida Clark Dulmo, em que ela entra em conflito com a mentalidade provinciana da sociedade patriarcal açoriana do início do século XX, a fim de investigar a hipótese de que Mau Tempo no Canal, de Vitorino Nemésio, possa ser considerado como um romance de formação (Bildungsroman) açoriano. / Bildungsroman relates to a novel form of Germanic origin. It is a literary form that expresses the conflict between the individual and the world of a character during his training period (Bildung). In the twentieth century, this genre has established itself as a productive concept in almost all national literatures of European or American origin. In this paper, we analyze relevant moments of the trajectory of formation of the protagonist, Margaret Clark Dulmo where it conflicts with the provincial mentality of the Azorean patriarchal society of the early twentieth century, in order to investigate the hypothesis that Bad Weather in Canal Vitorino Nemesio, can be considered as a \"formation romance\" (Bildungsroman) Azores.