Women’s baroque male allies

Abstract

Eighteenth-century Malta was a dynamic, adaptive place. In the hinterland farmers struggled to transform barren areas into productive land. In the harbour district, on the Eastern side of the island, people from all walks of life wove their way into a multi-coloured, multi-faceted cultural tapestry. The establishment of the Hospitaller convent in 1530 transformed the once desolate Marsa into a landscape of opportunities. Still, hierarchical class relations based on economic differentiation and social stratification continued to define the social reality of the island’s denizens. An overarching patriarchal Catholic morality maintained a tight grip on society — most oppressively on women, who were economically disadvantaged, excluded from public life, and subordinate to family interests. Women were not necessarily passive to the strictures and structures that controlled them. Trials lifted from the Bishop’s court and the secular court show that some women resisted or negotiated oppressive configurations, and some men appear to have helped women to act independently.