Amazons, Wives, Nuns, and Witches by Carole A. Myscofski - 9781477302194

Amazons, Wives, Nuns, and WitchesWomen and the Catholic Church in Colonial Brazil, 1500-1822\nAuthor(s): Carole A. Myscofski\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: University of Texas Press, United States\nImprint: University of Texas Press\nISBN-13: 9781477302194, 978-1477302194\nSynopsis\nThe Roman Catholic church played a dominant role in colonial Brazil, so that womens lives in the colony were shaped and constrained by the Churchs ideals for pure women, as well as by parallel concepts in the Iberian honor code for women. Records left by Jesuit missionaries, Roman Catholic church officials, and Portuguese Inquisitors make clear that womens daily lives and their opportunities for marriage, education, and religious practice were sharply circumscribed throughout the colonial period. Yet these same documents also provide evocative glimpses of the religious beliefs and practices that were especially cherished or independently developed by women for their own use, constituting a separate world .