Theme Ten: "Colonizing" Private Lives: Crime and Sin
 April 3-7
 castas6.jpg (7263 bytes)
 
Lecture Outline:

A. Interactions between Genders:
  1. Courtship and Marriage:
    a. The Marriage Market in Brazil and the Rush to the Convent
    b. Sex Before Marriage. . . in a Catholic Society?
    c. Inquisitors in the Bedroom
  2. Illegitimacy and Social Status
  3. Honor and Virtue
    a. Dons, Doñas, Doñcellas
    b. Plebian Honor and Virtue
B. Crime
  1. Types of Crimes to Reach Courts
  2. “He will be dragged  half-naked by a beast of burden     through all the accustomed streets. . .”
     Sentencing and  violence
  3. The Bourbon Reforms Part I

Key Terms:
 
Palabra de Casamiento  
Hijo Natural  
Partible Inheritance
Terça  
Honor  
Cuarteles Mayores
Charles III    
Haircutting   
Legal Minority
 
Reading Assignments:

Ann Twinam, "Honor and Sexuality and Illegitimacy" in Sexuality and Marriage,  pp.118-155.

Michael Scardaville, "(Hapsburg) Law and (Bourbon) Order, State Authority, Popular  Unrest and the Criminal Justice System in Bourbon Mexico City" in The  Americas, pp.501-525.

Susan M. Socolow "Women and Crime: Buenos Aires," in Problems of Order in  Changing Societies, pp. 39-54.

Questions for Consideration:

1. How and why did the Spanish and Portuguese crowns legally treat illegitimate individuals differently than legitimates?  How much did having an "illegitmate" marriage affect the elite women studied by Twinam? What about the children?  Consider what your findings mean in terms of the relative strength of Spanish laws and hegemonic values.

2. What do the types of crimes committed and who committed them tell us about Spanish urban society and, especially, women's role within it?  How did the changes in crime and punishment discussed by Scardaville reflect changing ideas about the nature of society on the part of the royalty in Spain?

 
indian1.JPG (16992 bytes)
Spanish judge punishing an Indian, Mexico.
 
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