Social Relations
Section 1 examines the function of gossip in community life. It highlights the role of women as gossips, motivated by a profound interest in the sexual activities of others, and using gossip to delineate the moral boundaries of the community. It considers how gossip led to female denunciation and action. Section 2 identifies forty-one different insults used against women. It considers the ubiquity of the insult putain (whore), but also how women were charged with drunkenness and lacking control through other sexually denigrating synonyms, and some non-sexual insults. It concludes that sexual insults were about sex, and were mostly used by women against women. Section 3 examines disputes over sacred spaces, which were bound up with social status, and violent neighbourly quarrels. It considers the causes of such fights, and how women were verbally and physical violent against other women, and men.