[Gocamino] Adulteress at the Cathedral

[Rosina]

Hello you all,

On the facade of the Santiago Cathedral facing Platerias there is a carved relief of an adulteress. The figure shows a woman condemned by her husband to kiss, twice a day, the decomposed head of her lover, probably murdered by her husband.

This appears a lesson in concrete aimed at medieval women who attended the Cathedral to respect the holy fidelity obligations of marriage.

In the year 1072 an edict was published excomunicating women who sought to have declared dead their husbands who had gone on the Santiago pilgrimage and had not returned. The edict applied even if many years had passed and the women wanted to remarry.

Nevertheless, non-returning pilgrim-husbands could be considered dead if their left-behind wives sought to enter a convent..... which married women?with living husbands could not do.

The great Galician poetess, Rosalia de Castro (1837-1885) fought for many years to expunge from liturgical documentation, on paper or in stone, any references that would place women in a subservient position.? Perhaps because of this, despite her immense talent and her?literary successes she was referred to by some as "la loca" (the crazy one) which is probably why she wrote:


"Dicen que no hablan las plantas,? ni las fuentes, ni los pajaros

ni el onda con sus rumores, ni con su brillo los astros,

lo dicen pero no es cierto, pues siempre, cuando yo paso,

de mi murmuran y exclaman: Ahi va la loca sonando......."??

(They say that plants do not talk, nor fountains, nor birds,
nor ocean waves with their rumors nor stars with their splendor,
they say so, but it is not true, because all the time, when? I go by,
they talk?about me and gossip: There goes the crazy woman, dreaming.........)

Ms De Castro would be very pleased, I think, to know that the majority of the Cabinet members of the present Government of Spain are women. (A fact recently criticized by the newly elected Italian Prime Minister, Berlusconi..[?]....Oh well!).

Hugs!

Rosina