As a Professor of Religion at Illinois Wesleyan University Carole Myscofski Pd.D, she teaches a variety of courses involving women, religion, and Latin America, she wrote Amazons, Wives, Nuns, and Witches. This is one of her book written in English, rather than Portuguese which examines women in colonial Brazil. Myscofski argues colonial Brazilian women were instructed how to fill their role in society by both religious and state authorities, whereas the roles they filled derived from such instruction it was their understanding of the role which altered the practice of their role in society. Women were placed into a restricted domestic sphere, the ideal was that they become honorable wives. The demands placed on women by society resulted in …show more content…
This is the stepping stone to understanding why Europeans placed restrictions on the women of Brazil. The following chapter discusses women in relation to the Christian ideal. These two chapters are based on the expectations European men had of women. The subjection of women to fit these ideals follows, chapter three focuses on women being molded into their wifely roles in society. This is continued in chapter four which takes it a step further and includes concubines, the women who were not fit to be wives. While the men attempted to control women, women reacted and defined their own place in the restricting society. As chapter five demonstrates women were not limited to just being the wives of men but they could also be the wives of God, there were different communities for women devoting themselves to religion. These women who were not all nuns came from diverse backgrounds, they were not defying the restraints of society rather bending them. It was the women who were considered witches, who practiced witchcraft that broke the rules set by society explains chapter six. Though Europeans attempted to restrict such practices, women would actually expand the rituals defying religious and state