What Change?: Spanish Gender Ideology and Marital Rape in La malcasada (1923) and Sólo mía (2001)

Carmen de Burgos's novel La malcasada, published in 1923, and Javier Balaguer's film Sólo mía, released in 2001, share striking similarities in their treatment of domestic violence and marital rape despite the nearly eighty years of history and the differences in form that separate them. The two works explicitly reveal the connection between gender expectations and domestic violence as well as the inadequacy of the legal system to protect its victims. Both works demonstrate that even when women technically stand to benefit from the protection of the legal system, the centuries-old gender ideology that is deeply ingrained in Spanish society (and western culture in general) can render that protection ineffectual and practically meaningless. Even though they are women from two different centuries, the protagonists of these works confront many of the same obstacles in the battle to reclaim their right to safety and dignity, a fact demonstrating that despite changes in the law and in the conception of domestic violence as a serious issue, the problem cannot be remedied without a greater change in the gender ideology that underlies Spanish culture.

Carmen de Burgos (1867-1932), author of La malcasada, was one of Spain's first radical feminist figures, with her prolific journalistic and literary career spanning the first three decades of the twentieth century. Ana Martínez Marín writes that Burgos "representó para algunos espíritus progresistas la encarnación viva de la 'Nueva Mujer'" (13). She was indeed an exceptional woman for her time—after leaving her unfaithful and abusive husband, Burgos supported herself and her daughter by teaching and writing. Her first articles in defense of women's rights appeared in 1903, and she published her first novel in 1907 (Davies 120). Over the next twenty-five years she published over one hundred stories and novellas as well as twelve full-length novels. Burgos used the mass-produced popular novel to critique patriarchal society's treatment of women, particularly the social and legal standards that left women nearly defenseless against a myriad of abuses. The disposable nature of these publications documenting her commitment to social and political reform allowed Burgos' work to be largely dismissed by critics until the 1970s, when feminist scholars began to reevaluate the merit of her texts and her contributions to early twentieth-century Spanish culture.¹

Burgos's straightforward, sensationalist fictions can easily be compared to some of today's popular films that treat topical social issues in the same melodramatic fashion. In La malcasada, the aptly named Dolores faces the scorn of society and the inequity of the Spanish legal system as she tries to escape from her abusive marriage. In Balaguer's Sólo mía, another young wife, with the equally fitting name of Ángela, confronts a similar situation when her marriage becomes a nightmare of abuse and humiliation as her husband tries to force her into the traditional feminine role of the angel of the house. Due to inadequate legal resources and other obstacles, both Dolores and Ángela are left to rescue themselves with tragic results—Dolores murders her husband in self-defense, and Ángela's final confrontation with her husband leaves him physically and mentally incapacitated.

Sólo mía, released in November 2001, is Balaguer's directorial debut, and although the film received mixed reviews it did win him three award nominations, including a Best New Director nomination at the 2002 Goya Awards ("Javier Balaguer"). In addition to directing Sólo mía, Balaguer also co-wrote its screenplay with Álvaro García Mohedano. In the "Making of Sólo mía" featurette included on the DVD, Balaguer describes how they were inspired by real life events (in particular by a newspaper article about a woman who was killed by her husband) to investigate the reasons why a marriage that must have begun with love, could come to such a violent end. Balaguer also stresses their desire to make a realistic film that would avoid common stereotypes:

Sólo mía refleja muy directamente y...