Scrubbed spots and scandalous fame: feelings about women's work in a court file. Buenos Aires City, 1826-1827

On November 30, 1826 in the city of Buenos Aires, the shoemaker Juan Abalos was found murdered as a result of a stab wound to the abdomen. Among the interrogations that tried to establish possible guilt, the one carried out on Pasquala Arrascaete and Rafaela Abalos, two women who were friends, who lived together in a room a short distance from the house of the deceased, stands out. What led the justice officers to look suspiciously at the "stains" scrubbed with soap on the wooden floor of those women's houses? What senses about women's work and about the way of life of Pasquala and Rafaela influenced those officers? This article intends to study such meanings through the analysis of a set of sources.