Honor at stake

The colonial period in Spanish America consisted of very stringent social standards.  If these standards were compromised or if someone were accused of compromising them, then a person’s honor and social standing were surely at stake.  For women, especially, a number of means existed for marring one’s honor status such as pre-marital relations, marrying outside of one’s social status, or even a simple insult.  In an era where sexual behaviors were heavily constrained just the accusation of such deviant behaviors could result in imprisonment.

In the case of Catarina Maria and Juan Teioa, a woman’s honor was at risk because, as she claimed, her virginity was forcibly taken from her.  Analysis of the case provides clues that this claim was not veritable but was an effort to regain honor.  Oftentimes, in colonial and pre-colonial Spanish America, once pre-marital relations had occurred and a woman’s virginity was lost, the man either had to promise to marry her or she could sue him for compensation for loss of virginity as a mean’s of recovering her chastity.  Such was the case of Catarina Maria, whose brothers discovered her love-making with Juan, and thus probably forced her to sue him for compensation of her virginity and honor.

The issue of honor and social status became prominent once the Royal Pragmatic was installed in the late eighteenth century.  Prior to this era, the Church protected couples from the interference of their parents, but the Royal Pragmatic made it possible for parents to stop their children from marrying out of their class to preserve the standard social hierarchy.  If a woman decided she would rather marry beneath her social class she would be accused for bringing shame and dishonor to her family as well as herself.

Insults were also a common form of bestowing dishonor upon a woman.  In comparison to men, there were a number of slanderous terms for women such as “whore” and “thief.”  Being called these names were significantly more harmful than they would be in modern times because of the heavily negative connotation they carried with them due to the stigma carried with their associated sexual acts.

The extent to which sexuality was constrained during this period in Spanish America created a society in which there existed several means of deviating from normal practice.  Luckily, we have available to us actual court cases which allow us to understand what principles of societal standards were of importance at this time.  The term “honor” still, in my opinion, remains a somewhat ambiguous term to historians, as we will never fully grasp the full impact that bearing dishonor meant to the citizens of Spanish America during the eighteenth century.  I feel that less of a double standard existed during this time as well because women and men were both faced with concerns of protecting their honor.