El cuidado espiritual y físico: primeras atenciones a la infancia en la España del siglo XVIII

Abstract

It is intended here to approach which were the cares children received during their early years of live in the Eighteenth century. In order to do this several literary works, treatises, sermons, newspaper articles and a regular series of wills and inventories of goods dispatched in the environment Murcia and Madrid have been analyzed. Throughout the eighteenth century, the issue of childhood acquired more relevance than in the past. The Enlightenment ideology proclaimed that the treatment to that stage of life had to be improved as a prerequisite for obtaining healthy, vigorous and active individuals. Issue that had to live with a set of customs, notably marked by religion and superstition, in a country that was struggling between the traditional and the modern.