In Beaumarchais’ Le barbier de Séville (1775) the old Bartholo plans to marry the young Rosine, a wedding which can only be prevented by the intrigue organised by Figaro. In El sí de las niñas (1806), Leandro Fernández de Moratín stages the high discrepancy of age in the arranged marriage between a young girl and an old man. The drama ends happily, however, with the love marriage between her and the old man’s nephew. Thus, toward the end of Enlightenment, Moratín and Beaumarchais put up for discussion a socially acknowledged habit and at the same time proposes an alternative.

Up to now, research has focussed on gender roles themselves. Thus, in Women in the eighteenth century: constructions of femininity (2006) Vivien Jones allows an insight into social expectations concerning the behavior of women. Furthermore, Gender in eighteenth-century England: roles, representations and responsibilities (2014), edited by Hanna Barker and Elaine Chalus, opens up the perspective to both sexes.
Continuing this development, the panel proposes to draw a link between gender and age by raising the following questions. How did gender roles change with age? In what ways, for instance, were girls attributed different social roles than boys? How did the differences between boys and girls express themselves in social interaction?

Contributions from different areas of research are encouraged: be it literature, representations in art, historical sources or philosophical reflections. This panel is explicitly open to young scholars.