Colonial Period Flashcards
What were the overriding assumptions about women and their behaviour (“essence”) as reflected in church prescriptions and social conventions in colonial Mexico?
LAVRIN (Sexuality in Colonial Mexico)
•Honour and will were fragile possessions
•Sinfulness was part of their nature
•The church was trying to protect women from their own sinfulness
•They needed protection both from and by other men (paternalism)
How wide was the gap in colonial Mexico between religious prescriptions, normative behaviour, and actual social practice? What does this gap tell us?
LAVRIN (Sexuality in Colonial Mexico)
•pre-marital sex was common in colonial Mexico
•The church lacked reach in rural areas
•Confession records indicate limits in reach based on class, ethnicity, and social status
•The significant promise of marriage was usually enough for women to consent to pre-marital sex
•Marriages occurred so the couple could get formal recognition of their union
To what degree was the public separated from the private, and with what implications?
LAVRIN (Sexuality in Colonial Mexico)
•Confessions were intended to be private but often leaked through clergy gossip
•Courtship was a public ritual that involved the whole family (the couple couldn’t be alone)
•Public shaming
•Honour could be lost in private but eloping regained public reputation
What was the role of the church in individuals’ lives, in familial relations, sexuality, and marriage?
LAVRIN (Sexuality in Colonial Mexico)
•Sexuality and relations were prescribed by the church–it’s all about babies
•Voluntary action=Sin Unvoluntary action≠Sin
•Bring couples together who lived separately
•Had the power to end a marriage if: not performed correctly, impeded by sin (incest, bestiality, etc.), or not consummated
•No marriage until all sexual sins were confessed to each other and the church
What were the aims and means of witchcraft?
BEHAR (Sexual Witchcraft)
•Mainly practised by women (or they were more often accused of practising or hiring someone else)
•Used for controlling or attracting men
•Often through household means like food and drink which were in the women’s domain
•Herbs, hair, menstrual blood, etc. used
•Symbolic acts like tying eggs together for cheating husbands
What was the inquisition’s attitude (and the church’s) with regard to women’s power and witchcraft?
BEHAR (Sexual Witchcraft)
•Viewed women’s power as illegitimate
•Sceptical and patronizing
•Saw it as ignorance unless the woman was actively promoting heresy
•Inquisition saw themselves as rational and dismissed men as “whiny” (they couldn’t control their household)
What impact did the inquisition’s view have on women?
BEHAR (Sexual Witchcraft)
•Devalued their power as women
•Self-hatred for going to an illegitimate power to gain control
•Could instil a sense of guilt when they bought into the doctrine
What does Behar mean when she refers to the ‘power of the powerless’? How did witchcraft practices cross race, class, and ethnic lines?
BEHAR (Sexual Witchcraft)
•The fear produced by witchcraft created a sort of power (men felt less control)
•Upper-class European women often sought out Indigenous women to practise witchcraft for them
Why was legitimacy such a concern for elite women and men in colonial society?
TWINAM (Honour, Sexuality, and Illegitimacy)
•Legal security like inheritance or taking care of kids if the father was out of the picture
•The social standing of family and children (honour and dishonour were inherited)
•Women only had two options: get married, or be a spinster
•Hidden pregnancy was common (public/private)
How could women protect their honour–and that of their children–if they gave birth out of wedlock?
TWINAM (Honour, Sexuality, and Illegitimacy)
•Immediately get married or get married later (Fuero Real)
•Hide pregnant woman→pretend nothing happened
→Couldn’t acknowledge or raise her own child
→Private life vs. public reputation
→Had to be wealthy
•In the case of public pregnancy:
→Expecting to be married but being led on
→Monogamy with some intent to marry
In what ways did family, religion, and kingship express patriarchal principles?
BOYER (La Mala Vida)
•The father was the absolute authority→could punish his wife with significant leeway
•Divinely ordered top-down structure of family model
→Applied to the king on a larger scale (he was the father to the nation)
→Could be reversed where husbands were supposed to maintain the authority of the state in the home (public/private)
•Women were legally defined as minors
What constituted the mala vida for women? For men?
BOYER (La Mala Vida)
•Mala Vida was anything that fell outside the bounds of what was considered normal/ideal married life
•For women:
→Financial burden (men spending money on gambling, alcohol, or mistress instead of family)
→Abuse (when it crossed the line from corrective punishment)
→Adultery (especially that resulted in abandonment)
•For men:
→If his wife was dominant it impinged on his honour
→Asking for help would compound the problem
What strategies could women use to try and alter the conditions of their mala vida?
BOYER (La Mala Vida)
•They could run away→family, church, or reputable community member
•Get help from a priest, family, secular official (judge, etc), or neighbour
•Attempt to endure
•Re-marry if they had reason to believe their husband had died (this ran the risk of bigamy if he turned out not to be dead)
•Go to court (especially in cases of abuse)
•Witchcraft (when in doubt…)
•Publicly threaten him with eternal damnation (there’s only one example of this so I don’t think it was a common or effective tactic)
What were the central concerns of the Real Pragmatica?
SOCOLOW (Acceptable Partners)
•Issued by Charles III in 1776
•Primarily concerned with Spaniards as it excluded mixed-race groups
•Required parental permission to marry
•Disputes went to civil instead of church courts
•Allowed parents to disinherit children who married against their wishes
•Born out of a desire to not only induce social order but also establish more control over the church
•Priests and clergy could lose their posts if they celebrated an unapproved marriage
How did the colonial state differ with the church in its handling of marriage choice?
SOCOLOW (Acceptable Partners)
•Priests were enjoined not to celebrate marriage without parental approval
•Restricted the jurisdiction of the church
•The church was concerned with free will and consent, as well as preventing sexual sin (pre-marital sex)
•The state was concerned with maintaining social order
What were the major reasons for parental dissent?
SOCOLOW (Acceptable Partners)
•Racial inequality was a major factor
•Frequent attempts to prove illegitimacy
•Blame for “stain” was often focused on parents and grandparents
•Personal morality like “questionable sexual morals” in lower-class women
•Economic inequality
Which groups were the most likely to dissent and why?
SOCOLOW (Acceptable Partners)
•Usually the man’s parents
•More middle-class (merchants, commoners, military officers) because they had the most to lose from marrying down (also focused more on economic inequality)
•Fewer challenges from the wealthy
How did Córdoba and Buenos Aires differ in disputes over marriage choice?
•Córdoba was smaller, rural, and more traditional than Buenos Aires
→A higher percentage of litigation cases against parents(?)
•More cases were appealed in Buenos Aires
•Rural/urban divide
