Víctimas y verdugas

The deep roots of medieval misogyny have endured for centuries in European literature, and many of its essential features still survive in contemporary society. Its consequences and its reality can be seen in this selection of stories that range from an enlightened one such as Denis Diderot, who captured in the women of the nobility their freedom of uses, through the rise of romanticism, to conclude in the Belle Époque of a France that, for a brief moment, after the Revolution, she believed herself completely liberated from her prejudices against women - before Napoleon's civil code in 1804 degraded them again to the condition of simple property of their husbands. Through Balzac, Mérimée, Petrus Borel, Alexandre Dumas, Barbey d'Aurevilly, Villiers de l'Isle Adam or Jean Lorrain, this anthology offers, in a framework of a century and a half, the evolution of the struggle of women to collect independence; she will be, in some cases, a victim of the law and customs, of minds anchored in the past; in others, she will turn against the established, even becoming an executioner, thus putting an end to situations impossible to tolerate.