Amazons, Wives, Nuns, and Witches: Women and the Catholic Church in Colonial Brazil, 1500-1822

3. Reading, Writing, and Sewing: Education for Brazilian Women

{ three } Reading, Writing, and Sewing eduCation for Brazilian WoMen W riting in 1587, historian Gabriel Soares de Sousa noted with approval the transformations of indigenous cultures in northeastern Brazil through the praiseworthy efforts of Franciscan missionaries.The conversion of indigenousTupinambá women to the religion and culture of Portugal was, however, still incomplete: The girls of these people who are raised and indoctrinated with Portuguese women, learn well the sewing and needlework, and do all the works with the needle that they teach them, for which they have much ability, and to make sweets, and they become remarkable cooks; but they are much desirous . . . of having love affairs with white men.1 Sousa, in this first comprehensive treatise on Brazil, thus offered a glimpse of the educational paradigm for women in the Brazilian colony: both indigenous and immigrant women were instructed by Christians in the comportment and domestic skills suitable for their gender. While their sewing and cooking had improved, according to Sousa, the religious formation of young Tupinambá women had not yet curbed their customary passions. In time and with additional instruction, they might still comply with the Christian ideals of chastity and submission for marriage to young male converts. Sousa’sTreatise is exemplaryamong sixteenth-century Portuguese and Brazilian texts in that he suggested the limits of contemporary educational efforts expended to bring women in the colonial societycloser to the Christian virtuous ideal. As I explained in Chapter 2, male authors of the early modern era affirmed specific and gendered characteristics to the nature, attributes, virtues, and bodies of women. But the inculcation of the ideal reading, Writing, and seWing { 85 } was not accomplished through religious exhortations or through any literary discussion among men as to its value and necessity. Along with texts describing and justifying restrictivevirtues for women came rules and regulations for the education of women. Production and reproduction of the colonial norms required the strategic instruction and deliberate education of women in submission, from their youngest days as a child at home through religious formation by missionaries and priests, and in religious and secular schools. The indoctrination of indigenous and immigrant women in the values of Portuguese colonial society rested on theexpectation of honorand virtue in feminine life. For the most part, honor could not be taught—it was an attribute recognized byothers, expressed in personal conduct, family privilege , and social rank. Women could at best support and demonstrate their personal honor through daily conduct, dress, and appearance; more often, honor demanded their absence from dishonorable places and ignorance of dishonorable people. Women might uphold family honor, but that was a social attribute primarily linked with the occupation and behaviors of the men of the household, and with the wealth, race, ethnicity, and lineage of their ancestors. The privileges owed to an honorable family might not be enhanced by a girl’s education, but she could certainly demonstrate family honor, mostly by the absence of evidence that might sully its reputation. Social rank also conferred honor, whether recognized through imperial bestowal of land, noble titles, or simple acknowledgment in colonial society. While women might not learn about or gain honor, the loss of honor was still a singular problem, for sexual misbehavior—or any perceived diminution of reputation—might result in the forfeit of personal and family status. Honorable women, then, might stand to lose honor, but seemingly could not add to it. Honor was rarely a recognizable attribute outside of the upper classes, but other women might have some measure of personal honor becauseof personal virtue. Forall women, then, religious virtue both demonstrated and conferred personal honor, and the concepts and elements of virtue could be taught. Considered a natural part of the feminine self, womanly virtue should have been understood naturally or discovered within a girl’s heart. Brazilian moralist Feliciano Joaquim de Souza Nunes insisted in 1758 that a woman’s “natural shame”taught her theways of modesty and chastity, but that her virtuous reputation was “very delicate.” One word, hewarned, destroys it, “one ‘appearance’dulls its luster; one laugh . . . defames it; one poorlyarticulated voice finally . . . annihilates it.” Honor, he explained, was falsely associated with wealth and family lineage; nobility and honor were linked and only revealed in personal morality and public { 86 } Amazons, Wives, Nuns, and Witches actions. Nunes cited biblical examples for moral guidance and suggested that women carefully attend to the teachings of the Holy Mother Church, to develop...