"The
Women of Mexico"
By Mildred Boyd
October 2003 Guadalajara-Lakeside Volume 20, Number 2
Women have often played important parts in history but their contributions
have been largely ignored. This is especially true in Mexico where the
macho image, as fostered by the church (and supported by the
law) seems deliberately designed to keep half the population in humble
subservience.
This was not always the case. Women
in pre-Columbian times enjoyed freedoms and exercised political and
religious influences that shocked the priests (who had, after all, come
to “save” them) out of their tiny minds. Small wonder, then,
that the good Fathers hastened to impose the prohibitions and promulgate
the laws that would put these upstart females in their proper place,
i.e. firmly under a masculine thumb.
In this, they were not entirely successful.
Colonial women in 18th century Mexico, especially those of the upper
class, enjoyed privileges undreamed of by their European counterparts.
Oh, there was definitely a double standard, especially where the concept
of “honor” was concerned. Only men, seemingly, possessed this
admirable attribute, but women could damage a family’s honor irretrievably
by violating the social and religious sanctions laid down, of course,
by those same men.
Such women were not actually confined
to harems, but their virginity was closely guarded and, since fornication
and adultery were crimes (but only when committed by a woman!), a wronged
husband or father could repudiate or even kill an errant wife or daughter
with impunity. It is hard to know which was worse. A female without
the prestige and protection of a family virtually ceased to exist except
as a mujer publica; a woman of the streets.
Such a woman had, under law, no, rights
or privileges. Her more moral (or more discreet) sisters possessed both.
In fact, a single women of the middle and upper classes was, once she
had reached majority at the advanced age of 25, virtually equal to a
man in most respects. She could inherit and control her own money and
do business in her own name. She could bring suit in her own right and
serve as witness in law cases. About the only things she could not do
were hold public office or join the priesthood.
Marriage curtailed those freedoms, but
both men and women surrendered individual identities to family. Wives
were never mere chattels, owned body and soul, but were considered equal
partners and all children bore, and still do, the mother’s family
name as well as the father’s. A dowry was indispensable in such
a union but a man seeking a bride of higher status might be required
to provide it himself as a condition for consent.
The dowry was, and remained, her undisputed
property. It could be anything of value; land, property, commercial
interests, hereditary offices or cash. Such assets were often the subject
of litigation if families failed to deliver or husbands mismanaged them.
He was, of course, the legal administrator but he could risk neither
her dowry nor their community property without her formal permission.
In fact, the wife was often full partner in enterprises based on her
possessions and, if her family demanded it, a prenuptial agreement allowed
her to act in her own behalf without his consent. She was further
protected by laws that made her the favored creditor of a bankrupt husband’s
estate and protected her and her children’s property from seizure
to satisfy his debts.
Although the process was complex and
cumbersome, divorce was common and the Church offered refuge for the
battered and free legal counsel for the poor. A divorce could be obtained
under three conditions; if she was the victim of life-threatening physical
abuse, if he contracted an incurable contagious disease or if he tried
to force her to commit a crime such as prostitution or heresy. Such
a decree did not allow remarriage while the spouse lived, but it did
restore juridical identity to the woman and awarded her a share in community
property as well as alimony and child support.
For those who would avoid both the stigma
of spinsterhood and the subservience of marriage there was a third option;
the convent. The first of many religious houses for women in Mexico
was established as early as 1547. Such institutions served many purposes
and women entered them for many reasons. Inability to find a husband,
family pressure, legal incarceration or even true religious conviction
played a part, but many women voluntarily took the veil simply to escape
marriage.
Some convents, of course, were homes
for the truly pious who devoted their lives to contemplation and scholarship
or such public services as nursing and teaching. Others served as refuges
for the unfortunate, rehabilitation centers for the fallen or even jails
and reformatories for the criminal. All were financed by the dowries
of the novitiates.
There were convents, however, that paid
only lip service, if that, to religion and whose residents enjoyed all
the luxuries and prestige of their worldly sisters and submitted to
none of the rigid discipline of the devout. Here, for the price of a
dowry, a woman could live in sumptuous quarters with slaves and servants
to do her biding while she did exactly what she pleased. Some were content
with feminine pursuits like sewing and embroidery. The artistic might
study music, paint or write poetry. The more scholarly could pursue
their studies in philosophy, history or science and the ambitious engage
in political maneuvers for control of the convent.
Alas! In 1884 President Diaz promulgated
laws of “incredible inequality” which virtually enslaved the
female half of Mexico’s population. From being better off than
the women of Europe and the U.S., the Mexicana was reduced to
servitude by a new Civil Code which essentially “erased and nullified
her personality.” No wonder women took such an active part in the
1910 Revolution to oust the hated dictator and regain their rights.
Unfortunately, they were only minimally successful.
“Baby” may have come a long
way in her struggle for equality but Chica still has far to go!