Social Trauma and Motherhood in Postwar Spain

Abstract

The Spanish Second Republic (1931–36), in keeping with its liberal and progressive ethos, created optimum conditions for women’s advancement in society. The Constitution of 1931 not only granted women the right to maternity insurance and legalized civil marriage, but it also sought to eradicate discrimination in the workplace by legislating profeminist labor laws. Women’s reproductive freedom was safeguarded by the legalization of contraception and abortion, and women also began to participate in political life. Not surprisingly, such emancipatory measures created a situation in which an enormous amount of women’s organizations flourished. Innovative measures, such as divorce by mutual consent and a lack of legislative differentiation between legitimate and illegitimate children, ensured that the Second Republic was, in the words of Daniéle Bussy Genevois, “in the forefront of the parliamentary democracies of Europe in granting women their rights.” However, the Republic’s secular left-wing inclinations were anathema to right-wing groups such as the Church and entrepreneurs, as they perceived a serious threat to their omnipotence in the Second Republic’s progressive policies. On July 17, 1936, the Spanish Civil War began with an uprising in Melilla. The Right, unified under the leadership of General Francisco Franco, emerged victorious following an internecine civil war that claimed the lives of more than 600,000 Spaniards.¹