Desavenencias conyugales y disidencias ideológicas. El pleito de divorcio de Ramona Palafox Portocarrero (1777-1823)

Abstract

The present work addresses, through a case study, the failure of marriages existing in Spanish society in the 18th century, which gave rise to a public controversy that would achieve great social significance by achieving wide social dissemination through the pages of the press and from authoritative voices of writers, moralists, jurists and politicians. Marital disagreements originated from a multiplicity of causes such as mistreatment, lack of support for the wife and children, abandonment of the home, cohabitations, drunkenness, abuse, scandalous behavior, etc., which, inevitably, led to situations of disharmony or true conflict. In this situation, many women dared to denounce them and even filed complaints before the courts requesting a divorce. The lawsuit that concerns us presents a certain uniqueness since its protagonist, María Ramona Palafox Portocarrero, knew how to take advantage of the special circumstances of a society at war to initiate a lawsuit in whose allegations she exposed marital problems of political dissidence, very different from those more common, described above. Furthermore, throughout the entire time that the process lasted, he acted with great independence of judgment, without fully adapting his conduct to the existing judicial procedures, which allowed him to enjoy an autonomous personal life and a social life that in his previous circumstances I would never have had.