Patricia Seed's description of love in the colonial period reveals the heart and soul of their views of marriage and the way it changed. While in modern times we might think that love was not a factor in marriage several centuries ago, people at the time thought that love was extremely important, they just had a different concept of what love meant. It was inextricable with notions of honor and duty, and was tied to family obligations and expectations as well as individual emotion and desire. Furthermore, it effected the way that marriage relationships played out and the way that marriages were arranged to begin with.
In the early colonial period, when colonial society in Latin America was more focused on religion, marriage was most importantly seen as a form of honor and obedience to God. They were granted by the church and governed by the church, eventually becoming one of the Sacraments. Since a marriage was then involved in individual salvation, ideally both partners would be more committed to the guidelines for a successful union. The role that love played at that time was to validate the spiritual nature of a marriage and add to its religious justification. Spouses were instructed to love one another, and this love was displayed through an intentional commitment to the longevity of the marriage and pleasing one's partner.
"Love" remained a commitment even as marriage became more secularized. As wealth grew increasingly important to citizens of the Latin American colonies, unions were more commonly based on the union of finances and monetary holdings, instead of mutual acceptance and similarities in class and temperament. The state also took a lot of power away from the church, and the government now granted marriages and oversaw conflicts within them. However, love was still seen as important if the union were to survive, and it was thought to be shown through the responsibilities of a husband and wife. If a man upheld his honor by providing his wife with a comfortable life and protecting her reputation, that was a sign of his love for her. The love of a woman was displayed through faithfulness and the tasks that she performed within the home.
Basically, an honorable couple, whether joined by religious or financial concerns, would commit to love one another and grow more affectionate towards each other over time. The unions were not based on fleeting emotions or feelings that would not stand the trials of married life, but on an understood agreement that was to last a lifetime. Of course problems within marriages were still as numerous as they are today. People were not always content with their marriage partners, even if they had a positive opinion of their partner in the beginning of the relationship. When money became the most important aspect of a union, honorable conduct often took a lower priority. But I think their outlook on love and honor was probably a reasonable one. It took into account the true motivations for marriage, which were usually somewhat selfish and influenced by social norms instead of mutual regard. Yet they, in theory, vowed to be faithful to the union anyway, not only keeping up with their roles as a spouse, but earnestly seeking an affectionate relationship with their partner. It seems a much more honest attempt at a successful marriage, even though it was not necessarily more effective than our outlook on marriage today.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Chapter Seven of Indian Women in Early Mexico discusses the use of last wills and testaments in Mexica society. They were used by men and women alike to outline the inheritance of important family heirlooms and valuable possessions. The statistics given regarding these documents clearly show the unique situation of many Nahua people at the time, as they learned about Spanish culture and watched the effects of it on their own people.
One interesting aspect of these wills is their extensive use by women. In Spanish traditions (though not always in practice), women were not allowed to own property, but the Mexica valued the responsibilities of women, and the control of certain parts of land and possessions went along with their duties. Women usually left their wealth or holdings to their children, often to their daughters, in order to ensure that they would retain the rights promised them by the traditions of their people. The household goods that were often left to girls also helped teach them to value the traditional duties of a woman, and to expect the honor that their participation in society was supposed to give them.
The practice of writing wills was a Spanish one, and did not begin in Latin America until it was colonized. It would be easy to think, then, that the documents were drafted in order to please the conquistadors and conform to their society. But they were written in Nahuatl, which means they were meant for fellow natives to read and understand. It reminds me of the traditional Nahuatl dialogues, which were transcribed by a Dominican monk, but were intended for the education of the natives by their own leaders, and contained many praises of the old system, as well as references to the parallel gender system by which the Mexica society was structured. The wills, similarly, were a native adoption of a Spanish practice that they then used to serve their own motives, namely the preservation of traditions and society. The Spanish, after all, were vastly outnumbered by the natives in Latin America, so it was nearly impossible for them to spread their own culture as quickly as many people believe they did. They did not present a system that was infinitely better than the Mexica way of life, nor did they all spend much time trying to understand the native society. Consequently, the natives were able to retain much of their belief system, including their ideas about gender roles, by conforming the new Spanish practices to their traditional values.
The importance of these documents, then, comes both from their revelations about the preservation of gender and their revelations about the preservation of Nahua ideals in general. These natives were not ignorant or passive people. Though they are often portrayed as savages who practiced human sacrifice and were wiped out by the more educated Spanish, there were much broader motivations to their belief systems, based on their religion and their ideas about the order of the universe. Many of their attempts to pass these values through the generations were successful, which is why so much of the native culture remains prevalent in Latin America even in modern times.
One interesting aspect of these wills is their extensive use by women. In Spanish traditions (though not always in practice), women were not allowed to own property, but the Mexica valued the responsibilities of women, and the control of certain parts of land and possessions went along with their duties. Women usually left their wealth or holdings to their children, often to their daughters, in order to ensure that they would retain the rights promised them by the traditions of their people. The household goods that were often left to girls also helped teach them to value the traditional duties of a woman, and to expect the honor that their participation in society was supposed to give them.
The practice of writing wills was a Spanish one, and did not begin in Latin America until it was colonized. It would be easy to think, then, that the documents were drafted in order to please the conquistadors and conform to their society. But they were written in Nahuatl, which means they were meant for fellow natives to read and understand. It reminds me of the traditional Nahuatl dialogues, which were transcribed by a Dominican monk, but were intended for the education of the natives by their own leaders, and contained many praises of the old system, as well as references to the parallel gender system by which the Mexica society was structured. The wills, similarly, were a native adoption of a Spanish practice that they then used to serve their own motives, namely the preservation of traditions and society. The Spanish, after all, were vastly outnumbered by the natives in Latin America, so it was nearly impossible for them to spread their own culture as quickly as many people believe they did. They did not present a system that was infinitely better than the Mexica way of life, nor did they all spend much time trying to understand the native society. Consequently, the natives were able to retain much of their belief system, including their ideas about gender roles, by conforming the new Spanish practices to their traditional values.
The importance of these documents, then, comes both from their revelations about the preservation of gender and their revelations about the preservation of Nahua ideals in general. These natives were not ignorant or passive people. Though they are often portrayed as savages who practiced human sacrifice and were wiped out by the more educated Spanish, there were much broader motivations to their belief systems, based on their religion and their ideas about the order of the universe. Many of their attempts to pass these values through the generations were successful, which is why so much of the native culture remains prevalent in Latin America even in modern times.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)