Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America

by Asunción Lavrin (Editor)

"Few decisions in life should be more personal than the choice of a spouse or lover. Yet, throughout history, this intimate experience has been subjected to painstaking social and religious regulation in the form of legislation and restraining social mores." With that statement, Asunción Lavrin begins her introduction to this collection of original essays, the first in English to explore sexuality and marriage in colonial Latin America. The nine contributors, including historians and anthropologists, examine various aspects of the male-female relationship and the mechanisms for controlling it developed by church and state after the European conquest of Mexico and Central and South America. Seldom has so much light been shed on the sexual behavior of the men and women who lived there from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. These chapters examine the variety of sexual expression in different periods and among persons of different social and economic status, the relations of the sexes as proscribed by church and state and the various forms of resistance to their constraints, the couple's own view of the bond that united them and of their social obligations in producing a family, and the dissolution of that bond. Topics infrequently explored in Latin American history but discussed her include premarital relations, illegitimacy, consensual unions, sexual witchcraft, spouse abuse, and divorce. Lavrin's opening survey of the forms of sexual relationships most discussed in ecclesiastical sources serves as a point of departure for the chapters that follow. The contributors are Serge Grunzinski, Ann Twinam, Kathy Waldron, Ruth Behar, Susan Socolow, Richard Boyer, Thomas Calvo, and María Beatriz Nizza da Silva. Asunción Lavrin is a professor of history at Arizona State University at Tempe. Her 1995 book, Women, Feminism, and Social Change in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, 1890-1940, won the Arthur P. Whitaker Prize from the Middle Atlantic Council on Latin American Studies.

Genres: History, Latin American History, Sexuality, Nonfiction

350 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1989

Reviews

[Seth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good book with great insight on gender and sexuality in colonial Latin America. I enjoy reading it and learned more than I thought I would about this subject matter.

[Aja · Rating 4 out of 5]

A look at sexuality and gender in Latin America in the 16th-18th centuries. Very interesting, but it really makes you wonder about how complete of a view we get when we look at history. In this example we are basing everything we know or understand about colonial sexuality/gender/marriage on the writings/manual/confessionals of priests. Is this really giving us a whole picture of the history of the people of this region?

[Ang~Dirty Laundry Review · Rating 5 out of 5]

To be fair, I am completely biased about this book. Dr. Lavrin was one of my favorite professors. I learned so much from her and thoroughly enjoyed her lectures. For me, this book is an extension of those lectures, and I continue to get lost in her words. It takes a special gift to make colonial Latin American history so interesting. If you are interested in this topic, you should buy this meticulously researched text.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alongside some good research there is also a deep cynicism about the presence of the Catholic Church. How dare the Church come to the new world with her strange ideas about God, force them on the natives, take incredibly detailed notes and provide all of the data for your doctoral research project? So offensive and helpful.