Flora Tristan and the patriarchal justice system: the insurgency of “Pilgrimages of an Pariah”

Abstract

Flora Tristan wrote Peregrinaciones de una paria [Peregrinations of a Pariah] between 1833-1834. The book is an account of her journey through Peru, in search of recognition from her paternal family. The purpose of this review is to shed light on the relevance and insurgency of Flora Tristan's thought. We highlight, among these rebellions, their chronological transcendence to lived time and the founding elements of a feminist critique of the patriarchal justice system. It is from her marital experience (and the attempt to end this experience) that Flora explores the patriarchal determinations that intersect with the justice system. From there, she unveils the relationship between domination and imposition of marriage, as well as the determination of the “female role” within the family. By bringing the state-sanctioned persecution of men over women to light, Flora affirms the relevance of her work 188 years after its first publication. Her insurgency lies not only in the analytical treatment given to the erasure of the philosophical foundations of women's right to freedom but also in her astute apprehension of the relationship of male dominance with the legal formulation of the right to bourgeois private property. Flora inaugurates the revolutionary principle that the private, in addition to being public, is political. The contemporary relevance of her work for Latin America and the Caribbean is highlighted, especially in terms of feminist thought in that region.