As this is the last blog post for this class, I think it’s important to look back at what we’ve talked about this semester as a whole. We’ve covered several centuries, and looked at gender roles all across Latin America. First, we defined what gender, sex, and sexuality really mean, and then we applied these definitions to the indigenous pre-conquest cultures and saw a variety of gender systems—many which were surprisingly equal. It seems the arrival of the Spanish brought a system of less equality, and as Spanish notions of gender met indigenous ones the two mixed. The Church seems to be the defining factor in Spanish gender notions, as most beliefs of how a man or woman should act is derived from Church officials’ interpretation of the scriptures. It’s kind of interesting to realize that pretty much in every culture we looked at, gender roles were tied to spiritual beliefs–it was the cosmos with the Indians in South America, it was the “spiritual war” in pre-conquest Mexico. This contrasts I think with modern society, where we derive our ideas of gender less from religion and more from other social arenas. This is really a reflection of how much society has changed over the last few centuries. I think the most important thing to take from this class is the understanding that gender roles have changed throughout history, and can give pretty good insights into the values of a culture and the way it operates. By studying gender relations and the way the change over time you will have a much greater and more accurate understanding of historical events that took place, and thus studying gender is essential when studying history.

It’s somewhat frightening to think that the Inquisition could apprehend someone that they were simply suspicious of. Just like that a person could disappear, spending weeks, months, and in some cases years in entirely secret prisons. The idea that a person’s life could be controlled in such a way is frightening both because there was such a lack of rights for the person being taken, and because it shows how much control the Church had in the daily lives of the people in Latin America. I have observed before how interrelated the Church and the daily lives of people were at this time, but this is evidence of an even deeper amount of control that I had not realized before. The fact that a person could be locked away without even being told what they were accused of shows a frightening level of Church control.

The case of Marina de San Maguel that we spent so much time on displays this perfectly–a 52 year old woman was taken without being told what she was accused of, and was imprisoned for months while being forced to divulge anything in her life that was sinful. In the process, she pretty much had to tell all the private things in her life in an attempt to figure out whatever the Inquisition was waiting for her to say. Even more horrible, after this long drawn out trial, she was thrown in prison for two years, then paraded around naked, given 100 lashes, and sent to a “plague hospital”. The victim had no rights at all in these situations, and this instance where 9 confessions were taken is probably just an example of the many things that went on with the Inquisition. What I gather from cases like this is the extreme lack of rights people had in this society. The fact that they could be taken and thrown into a secret prison for simply being suspected of religious heresy is disturbing.

It was interesting to read how witchcraft was really not considered that big of a deal, a “minor sin”. I guess it’s my saturation with the Salem witch trials thats gives me the idea that all witchcraft was deemed worthy of death, but I was surprised to find that the inquisitors actually dismissed the crime of witchcraft lightly. Nevertheless, a method women used to gain power was instantly labeled as harmful, perhaps mainly because it did allow women to gain some power in relation to men. It is obviously not viewed as some extreme form of heresy or sacrilege, yet society still formed a legal viewpoint against it. Once women found a way to gain power, it was instantly countered by a formation of “shame” associated with it. Behar aptly calls this the “paradox” that exists when women exercise power.

Martha Few discusses in some detail the fact that religion played such an essential role in gender roles of this time. Religion seems to have been a very common theme throughout all of our studies in this class, whether it be the idea of the cosmos found in southern Latin America, or the views towards war found in Mexico, or the religion the Spanish friars imposed upon the indigenous when Spain came to conquer much of Latin America. Religion can limit the practices of a society (as seen with the views towards sex) or provide opportunities for gender roles to change and shift from what they previously were. Either way, there is no doubt that religion and society are strongly intertwined throughout early Latin America history.

We have examined all over Latin America this semester how the conquest of the Spanish resulted in the Spanish imposing their own system of beliefs onto the people they conquered. This phenomenon is seen with the Maya, where a mixing of sexual ideas occurred. Contrary to previous beliefs, the Mayans were taught that “celibacy was the most desirable state and that sex was sinful and dirty”. (89). It’s hard to believe first of all that such a thing was being taught, and second of all that the Mayans bought into it on any level. I suppose when you’re being conquered there’s not much choice but to adopt the system of laws of the conquering people, but to take on such radically different views must have been extremely uncomfortable for the Mayans.

I find it comical that the Mayans actually used the ridiculous sexual standards imposed by the Spanish friars against them to defend themselves. We have seen select examples of indigenous people in Latin America using the invading system to their advantage (e.g. women using marriages to Spanish men for their gain), and the Mayans were able to do it. They “learned well the lessons that the priests and friars taught them” and then used them to attack the clergymen, who were breaking the rules they tried to impose. (99). In teaching such strict doctrine the clergymen actually condemned themselves, because the Mayans had the right to call them out when they knew they were committing sexual sin. This information is important because it shows us that the conquered people in Latin America were not always helpless when it came to their position versus the Spanish, but rather were allowed room to protect themselves using the invaders system. It thus repaints the picture of conquered society as one not where one race dominated the other completely but where rights existed on both sides. This coexistence probably strengthened even more as time went by and intermarriages between the two cultures happened, to the point where there was not longer two distinct sexual ideas clashing, but rather one mixed one.

On Thursday we examined a few court cases, which were enlightening both for giving insight into how the courts came to a decision and for providing secondary or peripheral information. For example, most groups looked at the Catarina Maria “deflowering” case, which showed not only the aspects of sexuality in Latin American culture, but also gave peripheral information–women had legal rights, honor was highly important, and loss of virginity had legal implications.  Another case emphasized the extreme importance of will in marriage. The annulment suit between Diego Andres and Ysabel Suyo provided an example of something that was discussed a week or two ago in this class–the fact that a marriage could be annulled if it was proven that both parties had not consented using free will to it. In this case the judge ruled that Ysabel did not have free will, and thus the marriage was annulled. Once again this shows that women had legal rights at this time, and that marriage could not be forced. I see a lot of similarities between the legal processes of this time and ours. The two parties involved were allowed to present witnesses and testimonies, and had a chance to provide evidence for their innocence or the other person’s guilt. The decision is made by one person, of course, but other than that the way this culture went about resolving legal issues is not too distant from processes seen in many countries today. The subject matter is somewhat different because societal norms and values are different, but through these cases its possible to get a good glimpse of what was valued in this society.

It is always interesting observing how a society changes as its attitude towards the religion changes. Right now we are studying a society where the Church exerts a great amount of control. As the Patricia Seed we read for last week demonstrated, though, a change in the role of the Church correlates with changing values of society. When there is separation of church and state, as in America today, there seems to be a wide variety of value systems, but when religion plays a huge role in defining what is legal or illegal, there is much less variance of value systems.

The basic argument centered around the idea that changes in the social structure/common thought resulted in new and different views towards marriage. The book was organized in such a way as to present ideas about love, will, honor, and the church in the 16th century and then to explain how and why those ideas changed through time. Furthermore, it related the changing perceptions and roles of those things to changing attitudes towards marriage. One thing my group talked extensively about last Thursday was the earlier perceptions of love. It was interesting that early Spanish society “…condemned marriage for economic, political, or social gain” (53). It seems that throughout the majority of history in most cultures the purpose of marriage was for reasons other than modern ideas of love, yet by this time in Spanish society the idea of love was dominant in relationships, and even protected by the church. This seems farfetched initially, but when considered alongside this society’s preoccupation with “will” and the protection of it in religious sacraments, it makes sense. Seed explains that, “This organizational need to stress free will produced a renewed Catholic emphasis on the necessity of the parties’ freely given consent to a marriage” (33). It is interesting that the Church would intervene on the part of the children in protection from the parents, an idea that seems very modern.

What I found even more shocking, however, was that this freedom evaporated as time went on, and as the Church weakened. I feel like movements towards less Church control are often related with more freedom, but this book demonstrated that as the Church lost control of the royal police, and became seemingly more irrelevant, young adults actually lost rights to marry, and were more subservient to the wishes of their parents. It was interesting to read the extent to which some parents would go to prevent marriages, even exiling their kids. As the Church became less involved in the private affairs of peoples lives, rights of the younger generation were actually lost, and parents had more control over their kids. This seems anti-progressive in modern concepts of rights, but it seems to simply be the result of changing dynamics regarding the role of religion in people’s personal decisions. I enjoyed Seed’s perspective on how these changing dynamics affected marriages, and it provides good insight into not only the social and gender relations in Spain, but also in Early Latin America, in which Spain had a very strong presence.

As was explained on Tuesday, there was a definite difference between prescription and practice. Although a certain lifestyle and value system (female chastity and male virility) was commanded by the Church, there was often a wide gap between what the Church required and actual lives. This brings up the question, “what was the norm?” Do we define the “norm” as the lifestyle most people in society had, or is the norm the lifestyle that the society viewed as ideal? I believe that the norm has to be defined as the lifestyle that most people had, not the idealized lifestyle. With such an overwhelming majority of the population partaking in a lifestyle other than the idealized one, it is incorrect to cast the idealized lifestyle as the societal norm. To correctly analyze and understand how a society operates, the most important thing to consider is the choices people actually made. Knowing what was viewed as ideal certainly provides insight into some practices of a society, but when a definite majority lives separate from the ideal, it is foolish to take the ideal as the norm.

On Thursday we delved into several of the readings in order to get a better idea of gender relations in the colonies. Peter Carrasco’s article on marriages in post-conquest LA particularly caught my eye. According to Carrasco, marriages between Spanish men and indigenous women were by far more frequent than marriages between Spanish women and indigenous men. Furthermore, marriages were primarily used as political tools, both for Spanish men to gain property in the colonies, and for indigenous royal families to become kin with the conquering Spanish (as was their custom). It was only high-up indigenous people who married the Spanish, as well. I think Carrasco makes some good points, but his lack of primary sources is somewhat troublesome. It appears that besides using a primary document or two, Carrasco cites mostly secondary sources. Also, one of the problems with Carrasco’s article is that he does not take into account Spanish-indigenous relationships that weren’t between the noble class. I don’t entirely blame him for it, since there is probably scant evidence of relations that took place between commoners (likely only upper class marriages would be recorded), but if he intends to classify all of the societal gender norms that took place in colonial LA, it would be incorrect to just examine the noble class. When studying Spain, we saw how Allyson Poska challenged classic views on gender relations by arguing that anthropologists incorrectly assumed elite practices to be the same as all of the Spanish people. In this case, Carrasco might be incorrect in assuming elite practices in colonial LA were the same as that of all people in LA. I would venture to guess that relations did occur between common Spanish people and common indigenous people in LA, and it is possible that those relations differed greatly from the practices of the elite.

I now turn my attention to one of the articles for this past week by Allyson Poska. In it she is challenging the traditional notion that female chastity was of the utmost important in Spanish gender relations. The traditional view does seem to make some logical sense, since the Iberian Peninsula at this point was a site of intense Catholicism. Even as we discussed in class, the very idea that the Muslims (and Jews) needed to be expelled from the Peninsula came about because they were not Catholic but were heathens. However, Poska very adeptly presents several pieces of evidence that suggests anthropologists may have incorrectly cast the practices of the minority elites on the majority of Spaniards. She mentions celibacy rates, legal rights for sexually active women, and illegitimacy rates among other things as proof that in fact most Spaniards did not value chastity in women as previously they were thought to.

This is a pretty critical analysis, as it has huge repercussions on the role of women in relation to men. Whereas under the Catholic system of chastity a women might be shamed and ridiculed by having premarital relations, if it were true that chastity was not all that important, attitudes towards sex for both men and women would have been on more equal footing. Instead of a women being limited by the “Mediterranean honor code”, they could achieve honor from less sexist pursuits. Of course there were still clearly defined roles for men and women, these roles were more equivalent and absent of the sexual prejudice geared towards women under the Catholic chastity system.

We discussed the Kris Lane article mainly in class, and for good reason, as it is excellent at demonstrating how the roles African slaves were placed in determined their concept of gender. I was surprised at just how different the roles of slaves were depending both on their sex and on their location (urban, rural, etc.). There were slaves fulfilling the stereotypical “field worker” portrayal that has come to be linked with African slaves at this time, but there were also slaves involved in urban life, fulfilling the daily tasks that their elite masters did not feel like doing. Women were automatically placed into roles that the Spanish felt were feminine, and males were placed into what the Spanish perceived as masculine roles. The effect this had on forming gender roles cannot be underestimated. Whereas we discussed the possibility of Andean indigenous women preserving their pre-Spanish culture through their new roles, it’s hard the imagine African women could in any way preserve their former way of life. Furthermore, by forcing their way of life upon them, the Spanish justified themselves through religion. As Lane says, “it was the Africans’ privilege to be captured.” By capturing them and giving them Christian names, they were apparently saving them. The amount of times in world history religion has been used for non-religious goals is too many to count, but add another one to the list.

What I found most interesting this past week, though, was the information that the African cultures were already built upon slavery, pre-arrival of the Portuguese. Often we get the impression that African slaves were captured by white men marching into Africa and doing the deed themselves. While there probably were instances of that, the vast majority of the slaves were apprehended by other Africans, because slavery was natural in their society. What is key, however, is that the way slaves were treated in Africa differed greatly than how they were treated in Latin America. So while slavery wasn’t a new concept to Africans making the Middle Passage, it was a new level of harshness and coercion. Would the slave trade have been nearly as successful had the system of slavery not already existed in Africa? I doubt it, as a large part of the efficiency of the triangle trade system was that the Portuguese were able to exploit an already existent practice to their benefit.

The motives of the article are definitely to give a testament about the selling of her house, and the debts of her and her two previous husbands outstanding. There seems to be great concern with paying off those debts, both for honors sake and for spiritual implications. It almost seems like a will, a document written for the purpose of record keeping so that things are carried out just as Maria wishes them to be. “Let no know violate my testament” describes the importance placed upon it being carried out.

The perspective of this woman Maria is shown through her honest confession of debts outstanding. Obviously it is important for her to pay them off, despite perhaps being in the latter years of her life. She even asks her stepchild to take care of her and her husbands’ debts. It was likely very important both in the spiritual realm and in the social one to stick to your word, and to take care of any debts that you may owe.

The text itself doesn’t really try to argue anything, it is simply a legal document stating Maria’s wishes. I compared it to a will earlier, and it is similar in the fact that there is a strong urgency for the wishes expressed in it to be carried out as she wants them to be. It gives some insight into the legal systems of the Valley of Mexico at this time, and also insight into the social values and the importance of paying off debts. One common thread throughout is the focus on God, and the fact that she is a sinner and needs saving. This might either be a reflection of the spiritual traditions of the culture, or evidence of the effect the Franciscan missionaries were having in the area.

The information given by this text has already been discussed somewhat above. I conclude by observing that this text gives insight into the daily life of the Valley of Mexico, and evidence of social values. Obviously a legal system was in place, and there was a high emphasis on being in good standing with others. I am not sure whether this is solely due to spiritual implications of being dishonest, but nonetheless it is important. There might also be evidence of the impact of missionaries, though that can not be concluded just from the scope of this text.