10 - Sacrificial Performances: Confronting Discourses on Prostitution in Dulce Dueño

Summary

Según la leyenda, nos preciamos de ardientes patriotas, desdeñamos los intereses materiales y nos hincamos de rodillas ante la mujer […] En cuanto a la galantería española y al culto de la mujer, ¡leyenda y más leyenda! […] la mujer española no encuentra, no diré galantería, ni aun cortesía y respeto. La mujer, en España, está desautorizada para cursar en Institutos y Universidades; mas si lo hace, causa extrañeza e incurre en reprobación tácita o explícita; las familias no se atreven a desafiar el criterio general, y no queda a la mujer más salida que el matrimonio, y, en las clases pobres, el servicio doméstico, la mendicidad y la prostitución. (Pardo Bazán 1899: 72–79)

(According to legend, we boast about being ardent patriots who despise material interests and kneel down to women […] With regards to Spanish gallantry and the cult of women, [one must realize] it is nothing but a legend! […] Spanish women cannot find any courtesy and respect, much less gallantry. In Spain, women do not have permission to pursue studies in institutions or universities. Should a woman choose to pursue this path, she will cause confusion and will incur a tacit or explicit reprobation; no family dares to challenge this general criterion, and therefore, the only path for woman is marriage and, if she belongs to the lower classes, domestic servitude, begging, and prostitution.)

‘La muerte de una leyenda’ was part of a lecture given in Paris on 18 April 1899 in which Emilia Pardo Bazán set out a series of concerns that she would later include in Dulce Dueño (1911). Her references to the oppression underlying Spanish gallantry, in company with the cult of women, the limits to their education and the consequent lack of paths open to them, converge in one of the most subversive passages of this novel: the scene of masochistic violence between a ruling-class woman and a prostitute. This chapter seeks to illustrate the place that Dulce Dueño holds in relation to the debate on prostitution in the context of the fin de siècle.