Women, Texts and Authority in the Early Modern Spanish World by Marta V. Vicente Luis R. Corteguera

Author:Marta V. Vicente, Luis R. Corteguera [Marta V. Vicente, Luis R. Corteguera]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General
ISBN: 9781351871396
Google: hzorDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-07-05T01:29:52+00:00

Empowerment and Gender

The happy ending of Job’s story must have comforted Moriscos even as oppression increased to culminate in the decrees expelling them from all the Spanish kingdoms. Yet more than solace, the story of Job and Rahma offered inspiration and empowerment to both women and men. Although it presented Rahma as a strong woman actively working for survival, the story never suggested that the patriarchal Morisco gender order should be overturned. Marriage represents the highest calling for women in this order, and Rahma portrays the ideal wife who loves her husband and will not leave him even when he is nothing more than a mound of worm-infested matter that she must carry into exile on her back. Job, as the patriarch of the family, mourns the loss of his children, but he continues to expect care and obedience from Rahma. The burden of his sufferings does not diminish his status as husband and father. When Rahma appears to have fallen under the spell of the disguised Eblis, Job immediately invokes his right to judge and punish her, promising that when he is restored to health, he will thrash her with a hundred lashes.

Yet the story is more than a testament to obedient wives and strong husbands. It shows that Job’s strength derives not from his physical stature, nor his social status, nor his threats to beat his wife; instead, his strength grows from his steadfast faith in the goodness of Allah. Because of his faith, he can see through the disguises and temptations of Eblis. Even reduced to a mass of worms and pus, Job is no less a man to Rahma. To her, Job’s faith has transformed him into a hero, and his suffering has made him a vulnerable being whom she tenderly cleans and carries and feeds as an infant. Because of his love for the steadfast Rahma, Job weeps as he realizes he has promised to whip her. Suffering and compassion modify the stark power of this patriarch. His strength, he realizes, is not his own, but the power he receives from faith in Allah and the love of his wife—a woman who did not hesitate to go with him and carry him on her back when their town expelled Job, who with her own hands constructed a shelter for them and earned their food by her own labor. In the turmoil of their last days in Spain, Morisco men must have found in legends such as the story of Job a reservoir of power to sustain them through their heightened vulnerability and the perils of expulsion. Surely, faith and compassion helped to provide the strength they needed to keep their families intact as they left Spain to travel to North Africa, France and the eastern Mediterranean.58

We do not know how Moriscas heard the story of Job and Rahma, but it is likely that the telling of Aljamiado legends such as this story helped to sustain their strength under increasing oppression. Moreover, their oral tradition became

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