El ocaso de la clausura: Mujeres, religión y estado nacional. El caso chileno

Abstract

The decline of the women religious model represented by contemplative nun convents between the end of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth, was part of a reform process experienced in different spheres of influence. Among them it is possible to mention the enlightened despotism, the liberalism exerted by National States and the ecclesiastical reformism of Chile. This article shows that contemplative nuns stopped being considered as women for liberalism because they did not fulfill a mother role. Moreover they were displaced within the Catholic realm by religious women with active roles in society, who fulfilled the role of social mothers. The exclusion of women from the enjoyment of political rights was linked to this process because the formation of a new public space required the conformation of a private space governed by mothers.