We are said to be children of post-modernity, but nevertheless we are often tempted to judge the past with a fat brush and to proclaim that the present is morally more advanced than the past tense. With regard to male violence, for example, the current scandalous statistics reveal us, we do so immediately: the point is that they were not counted earlier, it was simply domestic violence that was accepted.

Emilia Pardo Bazán is one of the largest Spanish writers in the 19th century, and you only have to read many of her stories to understand that male violence was not until yesterday morning something that was approved by everyone without saying anything. Pardo -Bazán does not explicitly denounce in his stories, but crudely portrays the daily violence of the society of the time, as demanded by his realist-naturalist poetics. The result is stronger (and I would say more effective) than any complaint. If anyone is interested, the editorial Password has just published an illustrative anthology of her stories on the subject: Broken lace: anthology of stories of violence against women.