Gender and morals in Spanish Catholic youth culture: a case study of the Marian Congregations 1930-1936

Jesuit-run Marian Congregations proliferated in 1930s Spain. Drawing on literature produced for their members, this article demonstrates how gendered understandings were fundamental to the congregations' symbolic delineation of an uncontaminated Catholic space. Visions of an incorrupt male elite abound, reinforcing the Jesuits' educational mission among future leaders and opinion-formers. In contrast, the purity of women and children was seen as a sign of society's moral health. Modesty was the quintessential female virtue. Yet, the cult of the Virgin Mary suggested that the virginal female body was both tool and symbol in the struggle against a fallen world. Girls were, therefore, charged with the task of moral guardianship. Such campaigns were emblematic of Spanish Catholicism's tendency to proffer religious solutions to social problems.