This study has identified and explored the public debate on the social position of women that appeared in 1820s Buenos Aires. As discussed in the introductory chapter, the consideration of the nature of women and their proper role in society, sometimes retrospectively termed ‘the woman question’, is a long-standing tradition in European print culture which became prominent during the Enlightenment. In Buenos Aires, views on the subject were expressed publicly from the inception of the city's press in 1801, in the form of letters to the editor of La Gaceta Mercantil, and the issue continued to be raised in the decade following the May Revolution of 1810, for example, with regard to formal education for girls in the periodical El Observador Americano (1816). However, in the face of conflict and disorder, and spurred on by progressive ideologies and their impact on, and exchange with, more conservative views, the debate gained special significance as a national political issue during the 1820s. In this respect it evinces the heterogeneity of post-independence ideological contention in Buenos Aires.

The preceding chapters have followed the course of the debate between 1820 and 1830, with reference to six texts, with emphasis on their definitions and representations of femininity, and their advice to the women of Buenos Aires and, occasionally, the Argentine nation and beyond. The obscurity of some of the texts studied necessitated the inclusion of what little biographical information on their authors could be obtained. Textual analysis focused on style, form and themes, and included discussion of cultural influence and transmission. Due to the lack of empirical data on the reading communities of the time, this investigation concentrated on the texts themselves and the ideas they communicated, rather than their consumption or their ideological impact in the city or region.

Beyond this examination, the aim has been to incorporate these neglected texts into discussion of the early revolutionary period in Buenos Aires. Chapter 1 explored the changes and complications that followed independence from Spain. Building a nation-state with a stable constitutional government in the River Plate provinces proved difficult because the set of principles upon which the potential state would be founded and governed could not be agreed. Therefore the decades following independence were marked by frequent changes in leadership, territorial fragmentation, and violent factional political conflict. National unity and projects for state constitution repeatedly failed, leading to a constant lack of political and social stability. However, although the 1820s started with the collapse of the central government, Buenos Aires was soon a vibrant city looking to the future. A wide range of issues were discussed with a view to building the nation socially, economically and culturally. The revolutionary elite actively pursued a different way of life from that of Spanish colonial rule, founded modern institutions and were dazzled by the allure of British and French customs and values. As a result, local traditions were transformed, including dietary habits, dress and manners. The literary market began to grow and women increasingly became consumers of print culture. The period saw the emergence of a professional published woman writer in Petrona Rosende de Sierra.