Liberty in reclusion

Abstract

The article discusses women's religious life in reclusion in Brazil, seeking to identify factors that motivate women today still choose this lifestyle. The empirical work was carried to a monastery of nuns of the Order of Discalced Carmelites, in the state of São Paulo. A questionnaire was applied to the entire population of the monastery. Accounts of life histories were obtained through in-person interviews with five nuns. It was assumed that these women freely perform the option of living in reclusion. Biographical and family structure factors, as well as a possible lack of perspective in the lives of these women appear, however, as defining elements of their choices. Nevertheless the nuns in talks, visits and interviews say they feel more free in their restricted world, cloistered, than people who live "in the world". This feeling of them is expressed in the title: Freedom in reclusion. Theoretically the data analysis is guided by questions of gender, emphasizing the mechanisms of ecclesiastical control over the monastery, the strict rules of the cloister, unlike wha thappens with male monasteries.