Os têm tratado e educado: as mulheres e suas ações para a manutenção da família e a educação de menores no termo de Vila Rica, MG (1770 1822)

Abstract

This research aimed to investigate the participation of women in the education of children and young people in the Vila Rica County - Minas Gerais, between the years 1770 and 1822. The sources used were notarial documents, including: inventories, wills, guardianship titles, chamber documents, petitions and justifications for guardianship. These documents especially belong to the Historical Archives collection of the Museum of the Inconfidência - Brazilian Institute of Museums (AHMINC / IBRAM) - located in Ouro Preto. We have also dealt with documents which are under the custody of the Minas Gerais Public Archive (APM), located in Belo Horizonte, and the Overseas History Archive (AHU), in Lisbon, Portugal, all of which available on the internet. We have also used the book Ordenações Filipinas and some works by Illuminist authors from the eighteenth century. During the period this research encompasses, education was seen as a more dynamic process and especially focused on preparing the individual for social life. Under this light, family was perceived as an educational institution, able to propagate and assist in building a more orderly society. Our analysis starts with women inserted in the family, in the role of first educator and head of the home management. Our goal was to rebuild the actions developed by them or for them in order to participate in the educational process of children and young people and also to ensure the survival of their family group. At the same time, we sought to understand women's strategies to educate minors. We believe that women recognized and valued the roles that were delegated to them - as educators and housewives. Thus, they developed ways to drive children and young people towards some kind of education; they sought to teach certain values and conceptions circulating at the time and, because they were concerned with their families, they tried to take action to improve their condition, insert themselves socially and ensure their survival. As we tried to prove throughout this thesis, the existing legislation in the period determined types of specific education for people according to their social origin. So our effort was also trying to understand to what extent educational orientation would trespass what was required by law. To guide our analysis of the sources, in addition to discussions on the history of families and women, we have chosen Social History methodological theoretical apparatus and prospects for analysis. In their turn, the concepts that anchored this thesis were chosen among those produced by Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002). From the perspectives and reflections arising from social history and the production of this intellectual, it became possible to understand the behaviors of women who belonged to different social groups, given the constraints imposed by law, by custom and by the conceptions in force at the time.