Gender and the Negotiation of Daily Life in Mexico, 1750-1856

4. Beyond the Door

Mexicans did not just react to their built environment. They also moved about within their homes, in and out of buildings, within their urban cores, and out into the countryside . As they went from one place to another they had to be conscious of the implications of different spaces—whether they were permeated with morality or otherwise, whether they conferred honor or not, and, especially for women, whether a space was safe or not. Just as individuals had to be aware of what spaces they crossed into, their hosts also needed to take care not to allow rowdy or disreputable people sullying their home’s reputation . Living spaces were not impermeable fortresses—even the wealthy with their spacious apartments composed of many rooms had visitors and multiple comings and goings of servants and trades people. As a result, in both elite and plebeian homes the internal activities of couples were often observed or heard. The audiences of neighbors, family members, and caretakers intervened or reported on violence within couples. But some men and women also sought out audiences; they used this proximity of residents in order to mete out exemplary justice and 4. Beyond the Door Beyond the Door 106 to humiliate. They sought out places where their actions would be observed by even more people such as at the end of mass or in the market. Husbands often borrowed the language of official punishments as well as a partially public humiliation for their wives when they very obviously took them out to the countryside to whip them. As neighbors saw women being dragged outside of city limits they would know the sequel and decide to intervene or not. Audiences had to choose complicity with the acts of violence that they observed or refuse collusion by intervening to stop these punishments. If the city core was also the core of morality and honor, then the inner sanctum of homes was also associated with these values . But Mexicans did not just stay at home in the safety of this shelter. Men and women not only circulated the city streets but they went outside of the urban limits when they traveled, when they gathered foodstuff or herded livestock, when they fetched water, and any number of other tasks. But apart from the morality -honor associations with space, there were also gender connections to inner and outer areas. While the home was a privileged female space, the streets and the countryside were linked to men. When women entered into these male spaces they were more at risk because they were sexualized but also because they were isolated and vulnerable. Husbands at times brought their wives specifically into male spaces such as the monte or the barranca when they wanted to humiliate and punish them. In doing so, they were forcing their spouses out of the moral center, but more specifically, into a male preserve. Moving out of center was always risky, but more so at night when spaces that might have been considered harmless in the daytime became perilous. Gender and the Street The threshold was so important in the spatial conception of Mexicans because it was the dividing line between the moral Beyond the Door 107 interior and the raucous street. For women it was doubly significant because their status as chaste and honest women was central to their identity, and leaving the house —going outside —meant sacrificing that protection. The interiority of Hispanic housing meant that it became “a female space shielded from the gaze of outsiders.”1 But life was not so simple that women could just remain indoors —their household tasks took them outside, as did a number of obligations such as attending mass. In order to brave the moral perils of the street, proper women needed to defend themselves whenever they left the enclosure of their residence. The moralist Juan Luis Vives likened it to a battle; he warned women to prepare their hearts whenever they put a foot out of doors. The nineteenth-century manners writer Diez de Bonilla continued on this vein by recommending that women use either a chaperone or clothes that concealed their bodies when they left the house.2 By seven years old, young girls needed to understand that their place was in the home; a moralist recommended that they should not even go to mass often but rather hear the inspiration of God away from the noise of the street...