Women In Colonial Latin America Essay

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Women’s Role in Colonial Latin America “What kind of society made it possible for women to act independently, even when this caused conflict with the men around them” (Gauderman 132)? The Spanish system was socially, administratively, and politically decentralized, and the family was also part of the decentralization. One of the objectives of this decentralized system was to prevent any individual or group from consolidating a position of absolute control (126). Equality was not the goal of the legislation and the state, but to uphold social and legal norms (1). Gauderman gathered her information from legislation, civil and criminal litigation, city-council, and notarial records to support her theory that women had a significant role in colonial Latin America (5). Spanish history starts with the marriage of Isabella, queen of Castile, and Ferdinand, king of Aragon, in 1469. With this marriage, the two counties became one, but neither one could control the others possessions without the other person’s writing consent, which was true of all marriages under Spanish law …show more content…

One of the similarities is the right to inherit property, and sell goods in the marketplace. She was under patria potestad until the age of 25, because she was illegitimate child, and her grandfather has passed away, she was sent to live with her maternal aunt’s family in Mexico City (2). Sor Juana wrote about the promise-to-marry plight of women in her poem Hombres necios que acusais describing how men seduce women and blame the woman for the indiscretion (5). Gauderman describes the Convent as an asylum for women to escape the life of a married women, which was exactly why Sor Juana joined a Convent (Gauderman 37). Sor Juana did not go to the courts for justice for women’s rights, she wrote about

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