Wider alle Gewohnheit

Abstract As an institution, marriage is an area of human life that has undoubtedly become an entrenched cultural habit over time. Throughout the early modern period, we usually encounter it not as a love marriage but as a forced marriage arranged by parents. And it is precisely from this position of marriage as institutionalized patriarchy from which numerous female characters in the novellas of the Spanish author María de Zayas y Sotomayor (1590–after 1647) suffer. This is especially true with regard to the protagonists who, through their suffering, are compelled to outwit their husbands by committing adultery, while others prefer a life as a nun in a convent to a life as a wife. In both cases, habit (here: the custom of marriage) is subverted and undermined by its opposite principle, namely creativity. The author’s two collections of novellas serve as the textual basis for this study: Novelas amorosas y ejemplares (1637) and Desengaños amorosos (1647).