Marriage and Divorce
Marriage and Divorce
Before the Europeans' arrival in Latin America, in the main cultures of the Andes and Mexico the great majority of commoners were monogamous, but the nobles practiced polygamy. To them, it was a useful privilege that allowed them to form close political alliances and reinforce military victories. The polygamous kings married women not only of the same social class but also women of inferior social classes.
INDIGENOUS SOCIETIES
In the Andes the main social unit was the ayllu, a group of relatives that had mythic ancestors in common. During the Inca Empire (Tawantinsuyo) the state controlled the marriages celebrated in each ayllu. By doing this, a new tributary union was formed. Before marriage, the young single people of the Andes had a certain degree of sexual liberty, particularly in communal celebrations. Royalty was organized around panacas, which were formed by the descendants of an Inca (except the successor, who would found another panaca). The blood links in a panaca were very deep, because the main wives of the Incas used to be the Incas' own sisters. During the colonial period, some Indians tried to continue practicing polygamy through bigamy or relationships with concubines.
After the Conquest, very few Indians married white women because the Spanish refused to give a woman to a man of a lower rank. Nevertheless, some Mexican nobles were probably the most important exception of this rule. During the sixteenth century, marriages between Indian women and white men were more common, especially if the woman was an heiress of a cacicazgo. But the society designed by Spanish colonizers had clear barriers in order to preserve separate "republics" of Spaniards and Indians. Very soon, the mestizos challenged that ideal separation.
COLONIAL PERIOD THROUGH THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Throughout the colonial period in Latin America, the nurturance and preservation of Catholic marriages and the family were a primary concern of the state and the Church. In the case of women, their "predestination" to marriage and the domestic sphere was sanctioned by the Church.
Race and Class
The Iberian sense of pureza de sangre (blood purity), which determined how honorable a person was, changed in Latin America quite early on. It began to be related not only to the absence of Jews, Muslims, or illegitimate ancestors but also to racial mixture. In this sense, the selection of a spouse was very important in defining not only one's own social status but also that of one's family and descendants. Nevertheless, racial mixture (through legal marriage, concubinage, or simply sporadic sexual relations) progressively increased and made social divisions complicated. Some scholars have pointed out that in the eighteenth century, many cities with Spanish colonies saw a loosening of such behaviors. Indeed, the castas increased considerably, and race became only one of many factors to consider in marriage. In the end, a person was able to turn "white" through a legal procedure. In spite of those changes, Spaniards and Indians continued to be relatively highly endogamous groups at the end of the colonial period.
As a response to the decline of social order with regard to marriage, in 1774 the crown decreed the Ley Pragmática (Pragmatic Law), which was extended to the American colonies two years later. This royal decree allowed parents to prohibit marriage of their offspring under twenty-five years of age according to the parents' criteria of "notorious inequality." The term calidad (quality) employed in this period comprehended a wide array of considerations in judging the value of a bride or a fiancé, such as family, economic status, and certainly race. However, this law probably only contributed to the decrease in nuptiality in cities such as Mexico City and Lima. People who adhered to the social values imposed by the Spanish order may have had difficulty finding adequate candidates for marriage.
Economics
An additional reason that could explain the low marriage rates among Spaniards, Creoles, and even some mestizos of certain cities in colonial Latin America was the practice of assigning inheritance to the firstborn son, in order to preserve the family power. It made it difficult for the other sons to reach an income level high enough to offer adequate status to a "respectable" bride. Marriage rites too were complicated and expensive during the colonial period and most of the nineteenth century. But the most important economic consideration was the marriage itself, because marrying a woman could mean assuming responsibility for the bride's extensive family.
Consensual Unions and Consanguinity
Many persons avoided or delayed marriage, forming consensual unions instead. Although a woman's honor was said to be lost if she entered a premarital sexual relationship, the frequency of such relationships was high. In many cases women had premarital involvements because of the promise of marriage, which was legally binding. After deflowering a woman, a man who wished (or was forced) to marry her would request ecclesiastic authorities to grant him dispensation from the impediment of previous sexual relationships. The argument often used to support his petition was that the woman would otherwise be dishonored.
The morality argument was also helpful in circumventing the consanguinity limits for spouses. Canon law did not allow marriages within four degrees of kinship or between ritual kin. However, endogamous marriages within elite Latin American families represented a common strategy for consolidating property and for political mobilization. These marriages between cousins, or between uncles and nieces, were not unequal marriages. Although the Catholic Church objected to them on moral grounds, in most cases ecclesiastical authorities were less concerned about consanguineous marriages than they were about irregular sexual relationships and illegitimate births. This order of concern is obvious from the dispensation records. For example, in nineteenth-century Chile, three-fourths of couples seeking the dispensation of consanguineous impediments cited sexual involvement as a justification, and half of these had conceived at least one child
Illegitimacy
Studies of several nineteenth-century cities have found that, on average, 20 to 60 percent of births were illegitimate (in general terms, Latin American illegitimacy was more a phenomenon of cities rather than of rural zones). At the lowest extreme, regions such as the Valle Central in Costa Rica registered only 10 to 20 percent illegitimacy in the first half of the nineteenth century. Cities such as Havana, San Juan de Puerto Rico, and Lima were on the opposite spectrum because illegitimacy was the most common birth status for black women's children: during the second half of the nineteenth century, 70 to 80 percent of them were illegitimate. This situation was not solely because other groups refused to accept black women as wives. For example in Cuba, a poor black woman would often prefer a consensual union with a higher-class male than marriage with a man of her own class, because the former could support her and her children financially. Nevertheless, in certain cities during nineteenth century endogamy among Spaniards and Indians continued at a high rate. For example, in the second half of the nineteenth century, the Havana elite became more rigorous in guarding against "black stains" in their families.
TWENTIETH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT
While changes occurred at different stages among specific countries, more socially conscious governments in the twentieth century spurred an expansion in legal marriages through increased social rewards for married citizens such as social security, family allowances, and health care. Other changes, often associated with the expansion of education, were a higher age for marrying (or coupling) and a decline in fertility and illegitimacy.
Types of Relationships
In general terms, visiting relationships—in which a woman usually has her own house, though occasionally lives with her parents, at the same time that her male companion provides some financial support for her and, typically, their children—continues to be a common type of sexual relationship in Latin America. Research on Colombia, Peru, Panama, Jamaica, and Trinidad indicates that visiting and consensual unions have some stability, as well as financial and social cooperation, built into them. In Jamaica the visiting relationship is practiced by all classes, often as a prelude to marriage. Many women express a preference for the visiting relationship over common-law marriage because common-law unions demand too much, and men fail to take responsibility for their children.
Another common sexual relationship in Latin America is the consensual union, which is like a marriage except that it is not formalized. Consensual union or concubinage has been very common among lower social classes in many Latin American cities. Nevertheless, the proportion of people who legally marry at some point is growing. Illegitimacy is also declining, though undoubtedly the data understates its incidence. In many countries, the increase in legal civil marriages is associated with advantages related to taxes, subsidies, and inheritance. Moreover, women with higher education are marrying later and having fewer children, whereas men are generally marrying somewhat earlier.
Family values in the lower classes (but also in the middle and upper classes), include different priorities of relationships for men and for women. Scholars assert that lower-class children in Venezuela and Chile are bound more to their mothers than to their fathers, and the child stays with the mother if the marriage dissolves. Men may desert their families, but instances of maternal desertion are rare and subject to severe criticism. Children of single mothers are frequently reared by their maternal grandmothers while their mothers work outside the home as domestics.
Divorce
During the colonial period, divorce was not allowed by the Catholic crowns of Spain and Portugal. Unhappy marriages might be dissolved either through annulment—available only if a marriage had not been consummated or the family was powerful enough to "convince" the Catholic Church of that condition—or through a separation of board and bed. There were numerous suits in Brazil and in Spanish America of the latter type, predominantly instituted by women because of desertion, physical violence, or lack of support. The return of the dowry was a major issue in many cases, because the dowry was supposed to provide security for the woman. Civil codes allowing divorce and remarriage were enacted in most countries of Latin America in the twentieth century, some as recently as the last two decades of the twentieth century. However, divorce has not been easy or common, and women and men have often been treated differently by the law. For example, although adultery was considered grounds for divorce according to the 1917 Family Relationship Law, a wife's adultery always constituted grounds, but a husband's only in certain cases. This difference in treatment did not change until the Civil Reform Code in 1983.
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Alicia del Águila
Elizabeth Kuznesof