I Patriarchy in Action: Guillén de Castro's La fuerza de la costumbre and the Distribution of Roles

It is clear that everyday social role-play is dependent not simply upon the whim of an individual, but upon the nature of the society and the status within it of that individual. Goffman's choice of the term ‘self presentation’ in the title of his sociological study seems to imply that the social roles one acts out are chosen, that social role-play equates to selfexpression. However, as numerous commentators (particularly those of a broadly Marxist outlook) have noted, any society which operates on a hierarchical basis tends to develop in a way favourable to its dominant members, who then dictate the parts that they require others to play. The influence of social power is the chief motivating factor behind social role-play – thus a king or a comendador will expect to be shown respect by his subjects or vassals, a wife is subject to her husband's control, a black African is usually branded with the ‘S’ and the clavo of slavery. This truism of inequality, often despised by those in authority, is nevertheless the stimulus for movements for social emancipation, whether socialist, feminist or anti-racialist. Writing of ‘power and the social order’, Max Weber notes that, ’[i]n general, we understand by ‘power’ the chance of a man or of a number of men to realize their own will in a communal action even against the resistance of others who are participating in the action’.

We must begin our investigation of social role-play by distilling from the large body of dramatic work produced by Golden-Age playwrights the essential features of the power structure of the society which forms the milieu of so many of their plays. The works included here are those that can broadly be termed ‘social’, that is, they are comedies, tragicomedies or tragedies usually performed in the corrales and set in a world which is recognizably a dramatic reflection of that of the period. Characters behave in a fashion which would have been familiar to the audience of the day because the audience behaves in a similar way (or has witnessed or imagined similar behaviour), and is, to an extent, likeminded (and therefore at least understands the characters’ motivations). The action of the works would have had an immediate relevance to the spectators, even if this action were displaced in time or place.