Ser mujer española en el Siglo de Oro y la época franquista: una identidad apolillada en La perfecta casada de Fray Luis de León y Cinco horas con Mario de Miguel Delibes

Abstract

Discrimination, be it wage discrimination, race and above all gender inequality, is an ancient phenomenon that continues to transcend eras and societies. Spanish women are unable to escape this reality as attested in the writings of Golden Century: era Augustinian monk Fray Luis de León and 20th century novelist Miguel Delibes. The moralistic treatise La perfecta casada by Fray Luis focuses on the description of the good woman who obeys her husband without being able to complain or oppose him by manifesting her own free will. As for the social novel Cinco horas con Mario, the reader realises that it exposes the features of a society that marginalises women and, paradoxically, reveals attempts at rebellion through the female character shaped by the Francoist system.