THE CONVERSION OF WOMAN INTO MOTHER: A CRITICAL READING OF "MÃI DE FAMíLIA"

Abstract

Directed to "Brazilian ladies", the newspaper "Mãi de FamÍlia" (housewife), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1879-1888, carries articles with an ethical-normative character in which the apparent centrality of the child is called down to allow the emergence of the category mother. The process of individualization at the interior of the fa­mily and the access to social valorization of the woman are inextricably tied to maternity, understood as a set of mo­ther' s duties. The emergence of the mother as an identity redefines a set of relations and constitutes the axis over which a new family is created. "Mãi de Família" constructs a female role model in which the recurrent differentiation between the lady and the slave/proletarian woman suggests, in spite of the model's pretention of universality and validity for all women, that it actually constitutes an attribute of upper­class women, becoming at the same time a sign of social and cultural differentiation.