Amazons, Wives, Nuns, and WitchesThe Roman Catholic church played a dominant role in colonial Brazil, so that womens lives in the colony were shaped and constrained by the Churchs ideals for pure women, as well as by parallel concepts in the Iberian honor code for women. Records left by Jesuit missionaries, Roman Catholic church officials, and Portuguese Inquisitors make clear that womens daily lives and their opportunities for marriage, education, and religious practice were sharply