Cultura urbana femenina. Espacios de ocio en Castellón a finales del siglo XIX

Even though the liberal and Catholic nineteenth-century discourse of the angel in the home expected the women’s existence to be spent between their housework and the religious offices and charity activities, women showed themselves in public and attended leisure activities. In this way, they could enjoy the group sociability that being secluded at home denied them, and could thus also speak and express their opinions, and discover their own creativity as they acted in theatre plays and private parties. The necessity of a higher level of education, which was required of the middleclass women at the end of the nineteenth century, went hand in hand with the urban and cultural transformations in the small and large towns in Spain. Castellón also experienced this transformation, and the emblematic areas in the town were the centre for the relationships and social leisure activities where women, both as spectators and subjects of representation, acquired self-awareness and self-esteem. Leisure, be it creational and recreational, was the prelude to their emancipation.