Love and Marriage in the Spanish Empire: Depictions of Holy Matrimony and Gender Discourses in the Seventeenth Century

Abstract

Seventeenth-century Spain and Mexico witnessed an explosion in artistic depictions of holy matrimony. Numerous patrons commissioned scenes such as The Betrothal of the Virgin and The Dream of Saint Joseph, also called Joseph's Doubts or Jealousy, which imaged the union of Mary and Joseph as the consummate loving alliance. In conjunction with plays, songs, sermons, and other devotional texts, such marriage scenes shaped societal discourses and attitudes toward gender roles, marital concord, and adultery. Most significantly, these images appear to document the emergence of new discourses of Hispanic masculinity. In the New World, where the visual arts performed the additional cultural work of colonialism, marital imagery bolstered Spanish attempts to Hispanicize the recently Christianized indigenous population.