"Temente a Deus e à Justiça": uma análise da construção da "mulher de bem" no aparato judicial das Minas no século XVIII

Abstract

This research aimed to analyze the construction of the image of the "good woman" in the daily application of justice in the region of Mariana, Minas Gerais in the period from 1745 to 1750. The purpose of this work was to analyze women, plaintiffs and defendants, in judicial disputes, trying to observe how these female characters presented themselves and how they were judged by the judicial apparatus of the time. We have established a comparison between the arguments they evoked in their favor and those raised by their opponents before justice, in addition to the arguments of witnesses and those in charge of justice. In parallel, we sought to understand some aspects of the functioning of justice in the first instance court in Minas, as well as the performance of its agents. To do so, we selected 5 criminal cases that were analyzed in order to unravel how colonial justice acted against the female population, what arguments and narratives worked for or against them and how this influenced their success in the face of the judicial apparatus.