Intentional Love

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.