Patrimony and Matrimonies III: archeology and reinvention of matrimonial knowledge

Abstract

Since the seventies of the twentieth century, women studies and gender-studies have been introducing in the field of western historiography inumerous examples and scientific evidence of women’s fundamental contribution to the history of western culture. They also have brought a fundamental insight into the strategies of exclusion, appropriation, distortion and persecution of women’s matrimony, for the purpose of perpetuating a vision of western culture as a unique, superior and exclusively male patrimony.  Reconsidering and questioning from the perspective of matrimony, the highly politicized functions of literary historiography and its canons in the 19th and 20th century open a new vision and new ways of making historiography, history and canons. Recuperation of the immense treasure of local and regional matrimonies of medieval Europe – discovering its archaic roots, continuity and permanency until nowadays –, creates the perspective of another World, where women and men have been defending another historical project against the violence and hegemony of patriarchy.