Marianismo
""Marianismo"" originally referred to the devotion to Mary (). The term was first used by political scientist Evelyn Stevens in her 1973 essay ""Marianismo": The Other Face of "Machismo"". It was in direct response to the male word "machismo" and was meant to explain the phenomenon in Latin America in which women were either "saints or whores". It is the supposed ideal of true femininity that women are supposed to live up to—i.e. being modest, virtuous, and sexually abstinent until marriage—and then being faithful and subordinate to their husbands. In essence, marianismo is the female counterpart to machismo, and as such, probably originated during the time of the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
Aleardo Aleardi
Aleardo Aleardi - whose name was Gaetano Maria, then he turned into Aleardo - was born in Verona in 1812 by Maria Channels and Count Giorgio Aleardi. After studying law at the University of Padua together with friends John Meadows and Arnaldo Fusinato, he returned to Verona, interest in poetry and art criticism.
Among his earliest compositions there are Marriage (1842), an exaltation of marriage as an expression of civilization, and the Arnalda Roca, in 1844, a poem that has historical protagonist a young woman who dies defending his honor: there is already in it the search for scenic effects and dramatic color that is typical of the entire production next dell'Aleardi.
The first success was achieved in 1846 with the two Letters to Mary, in verse, in which the poet turns to friend proposing a platonic love: it is an opportunity to express his belief in the immortality of the soul and pour out his emotional suffering in a spirit of romanticism way.