To love honnor and obey

this week read the book To Love Honor and Obey in Colonial Mexico. the book was a slow read but we luckily had spring break to work on it. the work is interesting however, it argues that changes in the social views in marital patterns in Latin America. the issues of parental control over the children and their choice in marital partners, the idea of individuals marrying not for duty to family or country but for love, as well as the importance of people not being “sold” to marriage as property. the book was broken up into a structural chronology. going from event to event, which really aided in understanding the progression of events and ideas in Latin America. the story of Geronimo and Juana really caught me. i have always enjoyed the Romeo and Juliet tales as well as Tristan and Isolde. the great difference is that the opposing forces in the Geronimo and Juana tale is that Geronimo and Juana did not come from feuding rival families but rather it was merely each of their fathers hated the other’s father. as well as Juana being imprisoned in order to separate her from Geronimo. the church, a more powerful force in the Geronimo and Juana tale than it was in the Romeo and Juliet tale, goes to bat for the star crossed lovers and wins. the couple are not forced to commit some great show of love in death because thanks to the pressure of the church and the social pressures and changing social attitudes about love the couple live ‘happily ever after’ in comparison to the romeo tale in which both lovers commit suicide. it is interesting that in Latin America in the sixteenth century the church could undermine the father’s parental authority where as going into the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Patria Potestad, or Father’s will, would rule above the church. the council of Trent had a large impact on the ideas of marriage, it redefined the idea of sex and sexuality in the Catholic faith. it also redefined marriage against a parent’s will. this was in addition to rising popular opinion that their should be choice and free will involved in the marriage process. the situation in Latin America is vastly different, as seen in Geronimo and Juana from the situations and practises of Europe and those shown in the story of Romeo and Juliet.