Disciplining the body. The Conservatori femminili to protect the honour and prevent illegitimate motherhood

Abstract

Women, historically subject to processes designed to regulate both her body and her social role, have long been imprisoned within the stereotype of the "icon of kindness" that is, of the exemplary wife and mother. This imprisonment has sometimes transcended the boundaries of metaphor to become a real confinement within the Conservatori femminili. Women interned there were particularly exposed to the risk of losing virtue and honour or they needed to regain it because it was lost due to illicit sex-uality. As much on the virgin body as on the guilty one was poured a correctional and re-educational logic whose purpose was to protect it, redeem it, and, above all, prevent it from bearing the wounds of the greatest shame, namely illegitimate motherhood.