Unequal marriages and the sanction pragmatic of 1776 in the yes of Moratín’s girls
The yes of the girls, released in 1806, was a success of representation in the Spain of the time. This representation took place in theater of the cross of Madrid. It is said that he was on the billboard for twenty -six uninterrupted days – since January 24 until February 18, 1806 -, his representation being cut in full success because of the beginning of Lent.
It was, chronologically, the third work represented by Moratín, who had previously presented to the public the old and the girl and the new comedy or coffee.
The yes of girls deals with the issue of unequal marriages in the Spain of the 18th. Murillo, J. C. He tells us: "Give the yes of the girls some matters that were currently in the years in which their creation is carried out, that of unequal marriages and that of the freedom of the children in the election of couple". It also tells us: “Different contents, different topics, are inserted into the yes of girls. Unequal marriages, children’s education, love relationships, paternalophilial relationships, society, the types and social problems of the moment."
However, Murillo emphasizes that, as has been said before, the most important issue is that of unequal marriages. Tells us:
"The fundamental issue is the problem of unequal marriages. It responds to a real concern of the time, related by the publication in 1776, on March 23 in particular, of a pragmatic of Carlos III in which the matter was addressed and the children were forced to marry only if theFamily head consent. Moratín will criticize the excesses to which that precept gave rise to the irrational impositions of a couple that parents made to their children for selfish reasons, of personal convenience, linked to the desires to progress, to socially and/or economically. It is defended that among the members of the couple there must be an essential equality, in age, in the economy, in the social class. The strongest criticisms against excesses are put in the mouth of Don Diego, who, being built on the type of tutor, is responsible for transmitting the positive doctrine that is inserted in the argument ”.
In the previous fragment we can see that the issue of the Pragmatics of sanction of 1776, which we will develop in the second part of this work.
First, in the work there is a revaluation of comedy instead of the tragedy, which Moratín saw more intended for the upper class. We see a criticism of unequal marriages;In this way, comedy subverts the elements of the tragedy. (Andioc Apud Martínez)
Regarding the latter, Moratín said: “Imitation in dialogue (prose or verse) of an event that occurred in a place and in a few hours among individuals, through which, and of the timely expression of affections and characters, they resultRidge."
However, Murillo himself continues to say, citing Moratín:
“The theatrical text must be written in prose or verse, although, in other writings of his explains that the use of prose for comedy is better, since it corresponds more with the speech of the people who are intended to reflect. If the verse is used, it is necessary to use short verses, stanzas that, such as romance or round, approximate the language of comedy to colloquial speech of the people of the moment, in order to bring the text closer to the viewer and provide it with greater likelihood."
We can observe that this coincides with Jovellanos, who says is his work memory on public education or a theoretical-practical teaching treated, with application to children’s schools and schools: “[…] directing them in the analysis of the models chosen toSearch, thus, the properties of the phrase and poetic phrase, such as those of the number and harmony of the verses;Third, making them first compose in poetic prose (because the subway is not the essence of poetry), to get used to and enable them in the good diction.”(Jovellanos, 1975)
Returning to work, the scene developed in a inn by Alcalá de Henares. That is, we are in a rural environment. The characters are middle-high class;However, we also find lower class characters, such as Rita or Calamocha. Moratin uses this to be able to represent a colloquial speech in the characters;Also, behaviors are more spontaneous.
The characters of the play are: Don Diego, the old man who intends to marry Mrs. Francisca;Doña Francisca, a 16 -year -old, intended by Don Diego and in love with Don Carlos;Don Carlos, nephew of Don Diego, in love with Doña Francisca and soldier;Doña Irene, Francisca’s mother, is the one who moves the threads for the future marriage;Simon, servant of Don Diego;Rita, maid of Doña Francisca and Doña Irene;Calamocha, companion of Don Carlos, maintains a relationship with Rita, a comic character.
Regarding this, Moratín tells us: the characters must be "particular individuals," not noble or kings, whose facts are subject to tragedy;and they must receive adequate, and plausible, characterization. The end of comedy is didactic. The texts are written to teach, to convey an idea, a peculiar vision of reality. (Moratín Apud Murillo)
Why this low number of characters that contrasts with the theater of, for example, the golden century? The key is given by Murillo: “There is thus complying with one of the precepts of neoclassical poetics that was going to become a constituent of the comedy of good customs. According to this, not to complicate the work excessively and not distract the viewer’s attention with superfluous agonists of minimal intervention in the argument and of meager functions, it was important that in the pieces they only included between six and eight characters ”
As for the Aristotelian units, Moratín respects them all: the action is one, without other underlying actions. As for the unit of time, the work is presented in one place: a inn from Alcalá de Henares. The work begins at sunset and ends at dawn, that is, the unit of time is respected.
Murillo agrees with this statement: “The action is unique. It does not contain actions or secondary stories, in the style of those that frequently appear in the new baroque comedy a part of the Popular Theater of Enlightenment."
Murillo says something logical but necessary to understand the treatment of the units that Moratín gives us just at the beginning of the work:
"The scene is in a inn in Alcalá de Henares.
The theater represents a passage room with four room doors for guests, numbered all. A larger in the forum, with a staircase that leads to the low floor of the house. Encoucho window to the side. A table in the middle, with bank, chairs, etc.
The action begins at seven in the afternoon and ends at five in the next morning."
As for a formal analysis of the work, the work takes place in three clearly structured acts such as an introduction, a knot and a happy outcome. Murillo says:
All matter is distributed in three acts, which is considered acceptable by the preceptists of the moment, and even preferable to the cast in five or four acts, since it allows to better adapt the external structure of the work to the distribution of the action advised by Aristotle inThree key moments, the approach, the knot and the outcome. Consequently with this the first act of comedy will contain the approach;the second, the knot;The third, the outcome.
It tells us the story of Doña Francisca, who is courted by Don Diego, many years older than her. It is reflected that it is not Paquita who seeks marriage, but it is his mother who orchestra everything. Paquita, on the other hand, is in love courtship with Don Diego’s very nephew: Don Carlos.
Don Carlos depends economically on his uncle, to whom he professes an obvious respect. This loving tangle is solved when Don Diego, figure of the enlightened, decides to abandon his wishes in favor of the happiness of the nephew and his beloved.
Now, what could lead to Moratin to criticize this practice? First, we must say that Moratín, according to Emilio Martínez Mata, taking as reference the poetics of Luzán, believes that the tragedies are destined to the highest classes, while the comedy “would find in the comedies the story of its customs and theirvices and defects, that is, the representation of condemnable attitudes that are shown as an example to correct and that of virtuous behaviors that becomes a model of behavior ”
Regarding marriages, he continues to say that Goya himself had immortalized the subject in his whim 14, a work that can be observed on the cover of this same work. He says this was "an obvious social reality". “In Madrid in 1787 the number of married men of more than fifty years was much higher than that of women and, as a consequence, there were three times more widows than widows."
He also ventures that he was only in whom Moratín was inspired. According to E. Martínez Mata, Moratín had begun to be treated with Francisca Muñoz, almost 20 years younger than him. Therefore, it would be Moratin himself who inspires Don Diego’s character, saving, yes, the age difference.
However, like Don Diego, Moratín also decidesto passion ”(op. Cit., 41). As a last curiosity, it is also said that Moratin said referring to a cousin, who asked him for advice for his wedding with a 22 -year -old man: “Are you in love with him, or not? If it is nothing more than estimate that professes for his good clothes, do not marry him ”(ibid.) What we can assume that unequal marriage was an issue that directly affected Moratin, who did not want to be converted to a Don Roque (Ibid.)
Martínez adds: “The problem of marriages imposed on the freedom of choice of young people was a living issue today, it is a very intimate concern that leads Moratin to raise it predominantly in their comedies".
Now, this refers to the cases in which the children contracted marriage without paternal permission or tutorial, quite the opposite of what Moratin wants to convey in the yes of the girls. In the work, the mother’s figure is the manager of the alliance between the interested party, Don Diego, and the affected, Doña Paquita. The Jiménez and Vázquez themselves quote Casey, who referring to the sanction pragmaticDoubtables ".
It is possible to emphasize what Jiménez and Vázquez say regarding enlightened marriage:
“As for the enlightened marriage model, in Spain it was advocated by a harmonious relationship between the family components. Thus, we can discover the image of a family folded in itself, inhabiting a home where order, virtues, industriousness, health and savings constitute the context of domestic coexistence presided over by the tenderness of the spouses, the love of thechildren, and the self-denial of mothers. Images that indicate that the new elite liked to present in public an affected and comfortable domestic life, which showed the spiritual and social distinction to which it aspired ”
This is what Moratín seeks to reflect in his work, because the opposite would happen with the marriage between Don Diego and Mrs. Paquita. There could be no harmonious relationship. While the public could be shown in a "harmonious and comfortable" way, this would be a pantomime, because Paquita secretly loves Don Diego’s nephew, a marriage that Moratin defends as more equal egalitarian.
Miguel de Cervantes in the second part of his universal Quijote, specifically in Chapter XIX dares to say about marriage:
"-If all who love each other well had to marry," said Don Quijote, "she would take away the election and legal to the parents of marrying their children with whom and when they must;And if the husbands were to choose the daughters, the husbands were to choose the servant of his father, and such who saw the street, in his opinion, bizarre and grieve, even if it was a slope swordsman;That love and fans with ease blind the eyes of understanding, so necessary to choose a state, and that of marriage is very dangerous of err, and it is very large and particular favor of heaven to succeed him. He wants to make a long trip, and if he is prudent, before he puts his way he looks for a safe and peaceful company with whom to accompany himself: well, why will he do the mesmo who has to walk a lifetime, until the whereabouts of theDeath, and more if the company has to accompany her in bed, on the table and everywhere, such as the woman with her husband? That of the woman herself is not merchandise that once bought it becomes, or it is barter or changes;Because it is an inseparable accident, which lasts what life lasts: it is a bond that if you once throw your neck, it turns to the Gordian knot, that if you do not cut the scythe of death, there is no unleashed."
This shows us a bit of the vision of marriage in the XVII. When Don Quijote says "if everyone who loves themselves had to marry […] that love and fans with ease blind the eyes of understanding, so necessary to choose a state, and that of marriage is very dangerous to err", they are not saying otherwise, but those who possess the necessary qualities to understand what children can favor or not in marriages.
Surely it is to this vision that Moratín wants to face. Well, the subject is not only in this work, in the old man and the girl again touches the issue of unequal marriages.
Following the comparisons, García Loca, in her work the prodigious shoemer. The works still continue the same structure: the young woman who marries an old man with whom they do not find happiness. It is true that the end is not the same, in principle. However, Lorca tells us the following in the outline of the work: "He was a shoemaker who had nothing more than his wife, and his wife did not want anything because he was foolishing with the young people of the people";Even in the initial outline, the shoemaker had a lover: Don Mirlo.
While the situation is not parallel, we see a similar structure while both have married, for convenience, with an old man in that both opt for a young lover, in other words: equal.
Moratin deals with this issue with irony, because in the colloquium between mother and son -in -law, says the mother that she married very young with an older man, who ended up dying soon, and he had done so several times;Moratin lists these advantages ironically.
In conclusion, we have detailed the reasons that could lead Moratin to write the yes of the girls;Among the hypotheses that gain more strength is that he was inspired by a fact of his own life. We have also contextualized the issue of marriage at the time of Moratín, a time of unequal marriages that inspired the complaint in the work. It has also been brief formal analysis of the work to put it in relation to the reforming movements of its time. In the same way there has been a very brief summary and a possible connection with a play by García Lorca.
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