Sob o signo da "fragilidade humana" : em nome dos padres e filhos : famílias de clérigos em Minas Gerais (século XIX)

Abstract

This thesis intends to investigate the constitution of families of clerics, in Minas Gerais, in the 19th century, having as its central argument the analysis of the relationships that were established between priests and children. The subjects of this study are the priests who lived in the villages and camps of the captaincy and Minas Gerais province, who recognized children in wills, legitimation, adoptions and other documentary supports, which attested to the recurrence of clerical paternity. Based on this evidence, the research problem consists of the possibility of establishing clerical families in Minas Gerais and their direct participation in society in the 19th century, considering economic, political, cultural and social aspects. The main objective is to contribute to the historiography of the family, which considers the existence of different family arrangements constituted outside ecclesiastical and civil norms. At this point, it is intended to include the clerical families also as a representative of these arrangements, despite being marked by contravention. Thus, the theoretical-methodological procedure will consist of integrating the current debates on family history with the individual records of the priests under study, turning to the elements present in the sources that show the experience of fatherhood. The analysis of these personal documents, added to the crossover with other notary sources, will demonstrate the recurrence of the actions of some clerics as fathers, linking them to the meaning of paternity. The results obtained from this proposal showed that some priests from Minas formed families, considering the stability of love relationships and, above all, the paternal attitudes, by which the heirs were treated, raised and educated, as the children of relationships established in legitimacy. Furthermore, the existence of this family background and the actions that defined paternity evidenced society's tolerance, based on documentary data, through which these facts were considered public and notorious.