This episode within "The Song of the Cid" is particularly dramatic and tragic. The daughters of El Cid have almost been beaten to death by their husbands because they felt insulted by the Cid. This painting stresses all the cruelty with which both of the girls have been treated. They were completely innocent and unsuspicious about what was going to happen to them.
However, one question comes up for me: Why would the father not make sure that his daughters marry decent men? Cid is, of course, perfectly loyal and submissive to the king. He proves that by letting him decide about his daughters' marriages. The king picks two men who are not particularly the ultimate dream of future in-laws: they are arrogant and weak. However, in the king's defense: how is he supposed to know that. Who is really to blame here is the Cid himself. He marries his daughters off to two guys who are terrified like little children when a lion escapes from its cage. They obviously are NOT capable of taking care of his daughters.
But the Cid does not really seem to realize this or he just doesn't care what happens to his two girls. Because quite frankly, he doesn't even have a relationship with the two of them for his family were for the longest time his men. He hasn't seen his daughters grow up and at the same time he hasn't spent a whole lot of time with Jimena either. So is it unfair to ask if he even sees any of them as his most precious treasure? The only thing that really is important to him is his loyalty to the king and his reputation that he spends years on to get back again. Even after the king has made a bad decision the first time, the Cid still lets him pick the new husbands for his daughters. This certainly proves that he is loyal and obedient to the king but what does this tell us about how much he values his daughthers.
The painting of the scene perfectly shows how much the daughters have to suffer for something that is not even their fault. They are simply the easier target than their strong father, and therefore, they are abused and beaten up because their father has ridiculed their husbands which they cannot tolerate since they are proud men.
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| "The Daughters of El Cid" by Ignacio Pinazo Camarlech (1879) |
Unknown | October 1, 2017 at 3:45 AM
In the real history, at least one of the daughters, Cristina, was treated better than this. She got married with a prince of Navarra and gave birth to Garcia IV the restorer, who restored the independence of the Kingdom of Navarra from Aragon. The other daughter Maria, who married the count of Barcelona, Ramon Berenguer III, may have been treated worse, since the county of Barcelona had previously confronted El Cid multiple times in the battlefield and suffered severe defeats and humiliations.