Homo/Hetero/Social/Sexual: : Gila in Vélez de Guevara’s la Serrana de la Vera

H O M O / H E T E R O / S O C I A L / S E X U A L : G I L A I N V E L E Z D E G U E V A R A ' S LA SERRANA DE LA VERA M a t t h e w D. S t r o u d Trinity University There is an ever growing body of criticism noting the homosocial underpinnings of comedia society in which women serve prima rily to cement the relationships among men. Barbara Simerka, Harry Velez de Quifiones, and others have convincingly begun to establish the homosocial nature of the stage society in which women, often as objects given signification only when they acquire exchange value, frequently have little say in their marriages or in other important aspects of their lives.1 The dama, toborrow a definition from EveKosofsky Sedgwick, is a character who takes her "shape and meaning from a sexuality of which she is not the subject but the object" (8). In Luis Velez de Guevara's La serrana de la Vera, Garganta la Olla, the home of Gila, the protagonist, is most definitely a man's world. Except perhaps for Queen Isabel, women, including Gila, are intended to be supportive of men but not to take a commanding role. Most importantly, allwomen, this time including both Gila and Queen Isabel, are expected to get married. Marriage is a primary means by which a woman's place in society is established. Despite her resistance to the idea and her unwillingness to conform to the role of novia, everyone wants and expects even Gila to marry (235-39): Dios mil anos nos la guarde la serrana de la Vera, y la de un galan amante... para que con ella case (235-37,239) There is, perhaps, no more potent symbol of the role women play in relationships between men than the arranged marriage contracted by the father and the groom. In such situations, it is quite clear that the daughter represents for the father a commodity in play in the marketplace of marriage in which all the traders are men and the goods they deal in are women. Indeed, Gayle Rubin, basing her comments on the work of LeviStrauss , has argued persuasively that patriarchal heterosexuality can effectively be characterized by the traffic in women which can take many different forms. The exchange of women, who have little or no value of CALIOPE Vol. 6, Nos. 1-2 (2000): pages 53-69 54 . Wilden, Anthony. System and Structure: Essays in Communication and Exchange. 2d. ed. London: Tavistock, 1980. ...