Women had choices. Who knew?

Religiosity in Colonial Latin America held a specific interest for women. Many women, in fact as many as 77% in some areas, preferred to enter Church life rather than get married. This must beg the question why one would choose the Sacrament of Ordination of the Sacrament of Marriage? Several reasons could have forced the hand of women. Their parents preferred to give out a smaller dowry to the Church rather than a larger dowry to a man. Although when the parents died every child would get their fair share, in the short term this would be advantageous to the parents. Another possibility postured in class was that the women grew up in Church life and then preferred to maintain their way of life. However, I believe both of these examples fall short of explaining why so many women would prefer to live married to Jesus Christ than being married to a man of the world. There were clearly corporal advantages to living in a convent rather than becoming a homemaker like we expect so many women to today. I would submit to the reader that this was not the alternative lifestyle modern people often view the nunnery as, but rather that the women made a calculated decision and saw that life without a physical marriage to be better for them than living with a man.

There are cases where noble women would go into the nunnery and lead a life of luxury. They would be black veil nuns and the white veil nuns would take care of them. This distinction was based on who had the larger dowry. The wealthy nuns could then spend their lives writing and studying instead of having to work and raise children. One woman, Maria de Agreda became a prolific writer and worked on many different subjects. She wrote “Divine History of the Mother of God” among other books and essays. Because she was able to write a book, this means she was able to study reading and writing to a greater extent than other women would have. Life in the convent provided her with a more leisurely life than that of wife, where should would not have had time to write books. This is, of course, not to say that all nuns had an easy life. Many had to work hard and pray all day long, which does not appeal to many people. However, there were several reasons that so many women would not want to enter into marriage. One must ask, what does this matter for women at the time? I would submit to the reader that this truly showed female empowerment. They could enter into the vocation God called them or into marriage. Contrary to what many feminists would argue, they had choices. No, they were not as diverse as today, but it demonstrates that women were not as subjugated as we are often told.