Wives on “Deposit”: Internment and the Preservation of Husbands' Honor in Late Nineteenth-Century Buenos Aires

Abstract

In nineteenth-century Buenos Aires, “institutions of deposit” were often used instead of jails to house women who were in trouble with their husbands and the authorities, and therefore had to be interred while awaiting trial or for other reasons. The public nature of these institutions was seen as crucial for the shaming of women and for the development in them of a sense of repentance and reform. They can thus be interpreted as an important link in a chain of formal institutions and informal pressures that enforced male authority.