INTRODUCTION

In the course of the previous chapters it has become evident that female selfishness is one of the crucial issues in the debates about divorce and women’s rights: in Chapter 1 the historical debate showed that for some divorce was a selfish female pursuit, while Chapter 2 dealt with the female ‘selfishness’ in demanding suffrage as well as female altruism which was portrayed as a form of moral superiority. This chapter deals with selfishness and moral reasoning. While the first chapter of this study raised questions about justice from a legal point of view, examined the intersection between society and morality, and asked what intersections there are between justice and law, this chapter looks at justice from a moral viewpoint, examines the intersection between the individual and morality, and asks how the individual arrives at a sense of justice. When people have to explain to themselves (or to each other) what they mean by justice, how to act in a just manner or how what they do is fair to all concerned, how do they reason and is this reasoning gendered?

The theoretical framework of this chapter is Carol Gilligan's seminal text In a Different Voice (1993), since Gilligan's theory is a useful framework for appreciating the complexity of what — at first sight — are the simple narratives of Burgos. The seemingly inferior sense of justice of the four heroines discussed in this chapter can not only be rescued but also be given a ‘different voice’ when examined through the prism of Gilligan's assertions. In order to put Gilligan into context I will first review Carol Pateman's analysis of contract theory and then concentrate on two of Gilligan's studies: her critique of Kohlberg's ‘Heinz dilemma’ and her abortion study. While the former is employed to illustrate the opposing concepts of an ethic of care and an ethic of rights, the latter questions the usefulness of the ethic of care approach. Gilligan's analysis of the decisionmaking process of the women in the abortion study lends itself to be applied to interpretation of the narratives of El abogado, El hombre negro, El artículo 438 and La malcasada.