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chapter 9 The Urban Family G Colonial Spanish-American society was organized in law and custom around the conjugal nuclear family. However, many families formed through consensual unions, and indeed there were many single-parent families (overwhelmingly single female–headed families). Each member of the conjugal family was assigned specific rights and responsibilities. Some familial rights greatly benefited women and children, as we shall see, while others did not. The protective benefits of religiously sanctified marriage did not apply to women and children of consensual families or of single female–headed families .This was unfortunate, especially since the incidence of consensual families , concubinage (amancebamiento), and single female–headed families was very high in urban Spanish America. Although similar familial configurations also existed in rural areas, in absolute numbers and relative proportions they were largely an urban phenomenon, not infrequently amounting to a majority of all families. Almost everything about colonial urban habitats was touched in one way or another by the family, and no institution of colonization was so affected by the urban phenomenon. The sights, the sounds, the conditions of health, the particular economy, the local church establishment, the demographic reality, and virtually all else was inflected through the idiom of the family, and in turn the family could not help being defined and redefined over and over, no matter the ideal in law and custom. The purpose of this chapter is to inquire into the impact of urbanism on the colonial Spanish-American family. 110 the urban family the ideal The ideal colonial Spanish-American family was conjugal and headed by a male—the pater familias. This was no mere honorific. The family was a patriarchy by design.The husband and father was supposed to provide for his wife and children, conduct all business activities on behalf of his wife, and supervise the functioning or investment of his wife’s dowry (the dote) as well as whatever marital gift he might give to her (the arras). The pater familias was also, in law and custom, responsible for the orderliness and social decorum of the family.To accomplish this the male head of family was permitted and even encouraged to apply corporal punishment to all members of the family, including his wife. ‘‘Correcting’’ family members in this manner was approved so long as it was not taken to the extreme. Marital infidelity was tolerated when committed by the husband but not by the wife. In the case of infidelity by a wife, beatings—including those that resulted in the wife’s death—were normally considered acts of passion that went unpunished. For her part, the wife was required to be chaste, run the household, do the cooking or oversee the household staff if there were domestic servants, insure that the children were properly dressed and behaved, and seclude herself from the outside world except when accompanied by other members of the family, as when attending church or going for a Sunday walk or ride. For such compliance with the norms of married life, the colonial SpanishAmerican wife was protected and rewarded in ways that appear quite modern compared to practices in the English colonies. Upon the death of her husband, a wife held legal rights to half the couple’s estate, with the remainder to be divided equally among the children (although one child could be singled out for a double share), regardless of gender. This was a legal right of enormous importance to married women as well as to their daughters. That right is precisely what was lost to women who lived in consensual unions.1 The urban reality was fraught with vagary and peril, and this largely urban phenomenon was part of the dark side of the urban opportunity. The children were supposed to be dutiful. Parents made most of their early life decisions, concerning such matters as education, career, and marriage in the case of legal minors. Children were legal minors until twenty- five years of age and therefore under their father’s or widowed mother’s legal tutelage. Affluent families enjoyed the privileged capacity to delay a child’s entry into the economy. During the colonial period in Spanish America boys and girls in all but the truly affluent families were expected to enter the workforce as soon as possible, and this expectation prevailed in inverse proportion to the economic well-being of the family. 111 the colonial spanish-american city...

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