Modern Spanish womanhood conceptually entered Spain as a result of the emerging consumerist culture.
The end of the Civil War, and the victory of fascist forces, saw the return of traditional gender roles in Spain.
[1] Where gender roles were more flexible, it was often around employment issues where women felt an economic necessity to make their voices heard.
[1] It was also more acceptable for women to work outside the home, though the options were still limited to roles defined as more traditionally female.
It was supported by Pope Pius XII's 1951 directive on the purpose of Christian marriage, which stated, "In accordance with the Creator's will, matrimony, as an institution of nature, has not as a primary and intimate end the personal perfection of the married couple but rather the procreation and upbringing of new life.
... One of the fundamental demands of the true moral order is the sincere acceptance of motherhood's function and duties."
In the case of Spain, the Franco regime's imperative view was motherhood should only ever occur in the context of marriage.
Antes que te cases was published by Nájera in 1946, with one part saying, "Racial decadence is the result of many things but the most important is conjugal unhappiness in the most prosperous and happy of homes.
It is impossible to maintain a robust race without a sound preparation of youth for marriage, through Catholic Morality.
Such difference emerges from the anatomical surface of each man and woman, and it goes to the deepest, darkest roots of life, to the home of the cells.
[7] This was a Francoist concept with roots going back to José Antonio Primo de Rivera's original Falangist ideas.
[7] In Francoist Spain, women were not endowed by God with business ingenuity, nor the capacity to be involved in war.
Topics included the marriage market in Spain, and how to navigate it in religious, political and sexual contexts.
[5] One of women's roles in Francoist Spain was to educate Spanish children to prevent them from becoming maleducados (uneducated).
[8][7] "Red" women with husbands in prisons also straddled gender roles, contradicting leftist thinking.
Women were no longer only biological organisms existing for the sole purpose of procreation, but as beings for whom Spanish cultural norms remained.
[5] Because of regime definitions around acceptable womanhood involving motherhood, many young Spanish women in the Francoist period faced a race to get married at an early age.
This would allow them to comply with gender norms and avoid criticism of being single and not contributing to the state.
Suecas were considered different than prostitutes because they were not affiliated with traditional brothels where men were historically introduced to sex.
[5] Sección Feminina (Women's Section) did all it could to subliminal quash female desires for independence in its support of regime sanctioned Falangist definitions of womanhood.
[5] Pilar Primo de Rivera was viewed by many inside the regime as a critical player in successfully encouraging Franco to relax restrictions for women during the 1950s and 1960s.