A Novel Instead Of A Ladle Or The Education Of The Upper Class Girls On The Turn Of The 19th And The 20th Century

Petra Mikulan

Summary:  Through the hermeneutic analysis of the professional text Domača vzgoja (Home Education) and newspaper articles in the Slovenka (the Slovene woman) – the first Slovene women paper, we we would like to document the alarm concerning reading sentimental novels as a trivial genre, which is supposed to have a baneful influence on the education and life of the upper class girls in the Slovene country on the turn of the 19th and the 20th century. In the proceedings, we will try to present what some convictions regarding »the right« education of the upper class girls were like, namely of wealthy peasant girls, newly established middle class city girls and aristocratic girls. We want to present the fields of the domination of discourses which, on the turn of the 19th and the 20th century, prominently marked the position of girls´ education in the prevailing educational model of socialisation. We are also going to treat moral, medical and biological arguments, as well as the arguments connected to dependence, sexuality and »pure« femininity. It will be found that the centre of the problem are reasons of political ideological and economic nature, as well as the control over women´ sexuality.