Acceso usuarios
Barcelona, España
This article explores the intersection of gender and parliamentarismin nineteenth-century Spain. Although it was an institutioncomposed exclusively of men, the experiences of women in thepublic assembly room opens a path for interpreting liberalparliaments from a gender perspective. For most of century, theSpanish crown effectively adorned three women, Queen IsabellaII, who served as queen in her own right, and Maria Christina ofthe Two Sicilies and Maria Christina of Habsburg, two queen-regents. All three presided over ceremonies that broughttogether parliament and monarchy. Other women in themonarch’s entourage or the general public also attended theseceremonies. Newspaper chronicles of three ceremonies inparticular – the opening session of the Cortes in 1834, theinauguration of the new parliamentary building in 1850, and theconstitutional oath of the Queen-Regent in 1885 – provide thebasis for this article’s analysis of both the representation of thewomen in the media and the roles they played in theseceremonial acts. The coming together of the monarch andparliament, two distinct holders of sovereignty with differentsymbolic backgrounds sheds light on processes of representationand legitimation that span the liberal experience in modern Spainfrom its start to present day.
