Auñamendi Eusko EntziklopediaFund Bernardo Estornés Lasa

Adelaida de Ubao e Icaza, a young girl from Bilbao under the age of 18, from a very Catholic and wealthy family, decided to enter the convent of the Handmaids of the Heart of Jesus in Madrid, without her widowed mother's knowledge. She made the decision after receiving spiritual exercises from the Jesuit Father Cermeño. Adelaida's mother and family went to court so that the young woman could decide for herself, without "the influences that seduce and subjugate her" in accordance with the canons of the Council of Trent. The court did not accept the family's demands, and the family appealed, basing itself on the interpretation of the term "to take state" in the Civil Code.

In December 1900, the dispute reached the Supreme Court, with Nicolás Salmerón, former President of the First Spanish Republic, defending Adelaida's family, and Antonio Maura, a conservative politician, opposing him. The case was heard at the beginning of February 1901, accompanied by anticlerical demonstrations. The Supreme Court ruled that "tomar estado" referred exclusively to the state of marriage (during Franco's regime, the Civil Code was modified so that "tomar estado" explicitly included the state of being a nun). Adelaida returned to her mother's house, but when she came of age, she returned to the convent and died at the age of 29 in the novitiate in Azpeitia.

This widely publicised process coincided in time with the debate on the separation of Church and State in France, and with the wedding of the Princess of Asturias on 14 February 1901 to the son of the Count of Caserta, an Italian Bourbon and supporter of the Carlist branch, a wedding that was met with popular opposition and General Weyler, Captain General of Madrid, d a state of war on the very day of the wedding.

Also, on 30 January 1901, the drama Electra by Benito Pérez Galdós premiered in Madrid. The drama, written in the summer of 1900, tells the story of a young woman forced to enter a convent in the face of opposition from the man who loves her. The controversy, even before the premiere, was reminiscent of Victor Hugo's Hernani, according to Pío Baroja. On the day of the premiere, Ramiro de Maeztu shouted ¡Abajo los jesuitas! to a chorus. The play was performed a hundred nights in Madrid and, in Bilbao, the audience demanded that the Marseillaise, Riego's Hymn and the Trágala be played. From a publishing point of view Electra was a success, selling almost 100,000 copies in Spain, apart from editions in Argentina and Mexico and translations. By contrast, the daily El Socialista distanced itself from the inoperative anticlericalism, calling for "less shouting and more doing". The bishops wrote Pastorales against Electra, boycotted by the clericals.

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