Women and marriage

In this very Catholic Kingdom of Spain, still influenced by Moorish culture, where conquest was made by force, and where the influences of Greco-Roman Antiquity, Christian principles and the inheritance of the Visigoths meet, women do not enjoy a comfortable situation. First of all subjected to a strict surveillance by their family, they then fall under that of their husband, which is just as vigilant, and often live a reclusive existence.
The lady and her fan - Velasquez
   
Women leaving church with the chaperon
In the upper social classes, this situation is aggravated by the necessity to resort to the convent when marriage cannot be economically arranged. Indeed, the practice of the dowry does not always allow families to marry all their daughters. A large number of them enter the convent and it is the custom for noble families to give a sum of money to the monasteries so that their daughters lack nothing. Very often the convent exists only in name, but the impossibility of marriage and living a normal life remain.
Also, all these excesses of confinement where women are on the one hand victims, can also lead to an excess of audacity on the other, when the opportunity presents itself. Then it only remains to take advantage when freedom shows itself by attempting to slip through the net or to bribe a duena.
These daring deeds are dreaded because if they lead to infidelity, it is difficult for men to forgive, such is the slight to their honour and the risk to their reputation as husband.
Maja - Joaquin D. Bécquer - La Habana -
Museo Nacional
The infanta Luisa Fernanda of Borbon - JDB -
Sevilla
Evidently, the theatre can only witness this reality. It revels in staging the tragic and comic sides of these amorous adventures, while reminding the audience of the place and social role of women as well as the rigid laws of marriage.
Thus Tirso de Molina punctuates his play the Burlador de Sevilla with numerous comments on the topic, using all the scenic devices capable of reflecting the society which surrounds him.
   
Thus the marriages of the upper classes are rarely marriages of love, as Octavio says to his valet:

    Ripio :
    Well! Would I not be born stupid, to be driven to distraction for she who loves me and whom I love? If she does not love you, you should show her your fidelity, to answer her every desire, to adore her, while waiting for her surrender. But if you both share an equal love, where lies the difficulty in marrying without further delay ?

    Octavio :
    Yes, it would be possible if it were the marriage of a lackey or a washerwoman. (First day)
Scene of seduction
Portrait of a woman - El Greco
This state of affairs can only entail rapid reactions on behalf of the women who attempt to escape these constraints :
    Doña Ana to the Marquis of la Mota (Second day) :
    My father has betrayed me and in secret promised me, without that I could resist: I don't know if I will be able to live, when he has given me death. If you cherish, as they deserve, my love and my tenderness, and if your love is sincere, show it at this occasion. As testimony that I cherish you, come tonight to the door that will lie open at eleven o'clock, and you will be able, cousin, to gather the fruits of your anticipation and to enjoy your love.
It then becomes natural to portray the flightiness of women as the prime reason for the loss of honour :
    The King of Naples (First day) :
    Ah! Poor Honour! If you are man's soul, why are you left in the hands of fickle woman, who is frivolity personified ?
Or Octavio (First day) :
    Octavio :
    (…) Nothing astonishes me, because the most constant woman still remains a woman (…).

Tirso de Molina depicts with few words and great competence the role and the condition of the women of his time.
If she is forced to a total acceptance of the social rules, she is also systematically responsible for all transgression of these rules, even though her greatest crime was to show the regard to one that was destined for another.