![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Gutierrez, Ramon. "Marriage and seduction in colonial New Mexico." from Between Borders: Essays on Mexicana/Chicana History ed. Adelaida R. Del Castillo 1990.
This was super great because it was affidavits from, okay, you know that bit in the traditional wedding ceremony where they're like DOES ANYONE OBJECT? In colonial New Mexico in 1702 they'd do that notice from the church pulpit for a certain period of time before the wedding precisely because someone might have a prior claim to the fiance. Apparently it was pretty common for engaged couples to have sex, so there was always the chance (as in the case cited here) that a woman would get engaged, get pregnant, and then be thrown over and have to appeal to the church that she was really really engaged and that she should get to marry the chump who'd abandoned her. So it went with Juana Lujan in April of 1702; Bentura de Esquibel had promised to marry her, given her an engagement gift, impregnated her, and then, discouraged by her family (who didn't know she was pregnant) left her for another, and notably, more European woman. There's a long bit in the essay about a quite complicated algebra the Spanish Crown had codified that worked out whether the loss in status by forcing a man to marry a social lesser was greater than or equal to the loss in honor a woman would suffer by being "unredeemed" by marriage.
I like this article partially because the people in it seem very realistic; Bentura's family sends him out of town to get over the lesser Juana, who up until then he had been determined to marry and redeem in the eyes of the church. But then he gets over her because he's seventeen years old. In the end he's made to pay her enough money to buy a good-sized flock of sheep, thus establishing her as a woman of property (and therefore, at least in theory, giving her a way to appeal to other potential spouses even though she has an illegitimate child.) I do like seeing into the lives of people I will never meet through documents.
This was super great because it was affidavits from, okay, you know that bit in the traditional wedding ceremony where they're like DOES ANYONE OBJECT? In colonial New Mexico in 1702 they'd do that notice from the church pulpit for a certain period of time before the wedding precisely because someone might have a prior claim to the fiance. Apparently it was pretty common for engaged couples to have sex, so there was always the chance (as in the case cited here) that a woman would get engaged, get pregnant, and then be thrown over and have to appeal to the church that she was really really engaged and that she should get to marry the chump who'd abandoned her. So it went with Juana Lujan in April of 1702; Bentura de Esquibel had promised to marry her, given her an engagement gift, impregnated her, and then, discouraged by her family (who didn't know she was pregnant) left her for another, and notably, more European woman. There's a long bit in the essay about a quite complicated algebra the Spanish Crown had codified that worked out whether the loss in status by forcing a man to marry a social lesser was greater than or equal to the loss in honor a woman would suffer by being "unredeemed" by marriage.
I like this article partially because the people in it seem very realistic; Bentura's family sends him out of town to get over the lesser Juana, who up until then he had been determined to marry and redeem in the eyes of the church. But then he gets over her because he's seventeen years old. In the end he's made to pay her enough money to buy a good-sized flock of sheep, thus establishing her as a woman of property (and therefore, at least in theory, giving her a way to appeal to other potential spouses even though she has an illegitimate child.) I do like seeing into the lives of people I will never meet through documents.
Tags: