History 465 week 7

I have learned many new and interesting things about women from Spain in c. 17 century.  Mostly on the topic of how women had a strong control of their dowry.  It seem interesting to me that when a man married a women that they would even get any dowry in the first place.  I had the impression that the man had to provide everything he earned to his family.  It is nice to learn that this dowry was to help the couple in creating a new life together.  It was also nice to see that the men had go get permission from there wife to spend any part of the dowry, on the other had the wife had go get permission as well for the same privilege.  I believe that overall the female had the most control over the dowry because if she got a divorce she got to take her dowry with her and she could also divorce her husband if she finds him stilling from the dowry.  To me this is a sign that women in Spain are starting to gain some control and power.  Also this week I enjoyed reading To Love, Honor, and Obey.  It seems to be a romantic idea of the Catholic Church to let people marry for love.  In the colonial time period many parents would try to get their children to marry others who were in the same social economic class not for who they fell in love with.  I do have an understanding for parents wanting their children to marry a person who could provide a good living for them in the future, but to get married to someone without loving them seems to be horrible and unjust.  I like how the Catholic Church did not get faded into letting their parents picking their partner and let people marry for love.  Reading Seeds book I have seen many similarity in my Mexican American, Catholic family, for I don’t see much change forms Seeds research in the 16th -19th century to today.  Right now my older sister is thinking about to get married to a man in the Army, which my parents are not too fond of.  It’s not that they do not like men in the Army, but they do not like the high risk of having a husband who can get deployed at any moment’s notice, and also having a high risk of him passing away.  They don’t think she is strong enough to handle it or the fact that she might not see him for months at a time.  So in that aspect it’s a bit different, but overall the same as parents wanting to control who their children get married to.  Maybe I should get my parents to read the book so they can have a better insight.