Women, motherhood and landowning in Alto Minho

Abstract

Based in a field work achieved between 1978 and 1980, the present text studies, under a socio-anthropological perspective, the situation of women in the peasant society of the Alto Minho (High Minho). According to the author, the access to the landowning is the measure that determines the life course of each young woman - up to a recent moment, there was no marriage without land. Thus one discovers the existence of an inequality as to motherhood. On one side there are the patroas (mistresses), whose motherhood is redeemed through the sacrament of marriage and resembles Our Lady's motherhood. They have a power position as to their propriety and as to their kindred, and share the house prestige with their husbands. On the other side, there are the unmarried mothers, whose motherhood is associated with that of the animals and whose sexuality is considered as uncontroled and, therefore, as harmful. They possess no power over any propriety or any of their kindred, who have a tendency to spread themselves, and constitute the lowest level of the local society.