The Disabling of Aging Female Bodies: Midwives, Procuresses, Witches and the Monstrous Mother

Abstract

This chapter studies the literary trope of the hag. The works chosen for examination, Fernando de Rojas’s La Celestina (1499, 1502), Cervantes’s Diálogo de los perros [Dialogue of the Dogs] (1613), Mateo Alemán’s Guzmán de Alfarache (1599, 1604) and Francisco de Quevedo’s El Buscón [The Swindler] (1626) as well as his satiric poetry, are representative of the evolution of elderly women characters in Early Modern Spanish literature. Using disability and aging theories, the chapter focuses the analysis on the major components of their depiction: their defective bodies, their relation to the healing arts (midwives) and sexual activities, their proclivity to practice witchcraft, and their inefficient role as mothers. The objective is to illustrate the mechanisms involved in the construction of aging female disability in the imaginary of the period.