SOLAS ANTE EL ESCÁNDALO. VIUDAS Y CONFLICTIVIDAD FAMILIAR (BARCELONA, SS. XVII-XVIII).

This paper addresses the notion of scandal and how scandal developed in real life from the perspective of the family. It explores the link between scandal and family conflict. Widows are taken as a reference of this particular realm of conflict. The paper considers cases in which they are at the origin of the conflict or they are involved in it, and analyses their behaviour, their agency, and their relationships in order to understand how scandals broke into the public arena, as well as their final stages, which coincided with material and symbolic ruptures in the family. In order to carry out this study, we have mainly used sources that illuminate widows both confronting situations of material rupture or family abandonment in the face of the scandal, as well as enduring symbolic rupture and litigation within the family. The work underlines how scandal was linked to conflict within families, whether patrimonial, economic or affective. It shows how it began within the household, how it developed, and how, rather than being hidden, was rather instrumentalised for specific purposes and interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]