HIS1300 Latin American| Analysis of Pre-Contact Gender Systems

The purpose of this essay is to provide a comparative analysis of the position of women with regard to family, politics, economics, religion and sexuality in three different geographical regions of Iberia, Africa and the Americas as discussed by Susan Migden Socolow in her book ‘The Women of Colonial Latin America’.

t-align: justify;">In Iberia family honour was considered to be tied to the conduct of a woman. Her relation to a man could be either of a wife or of a daughter. Otherwise she had to be a nun. The position of a woman was lesser than that of a man in society, but ironically Spain was then under the Rule of Queen. Women could inherit properties and manage the dowry, however that could be decided by the leading male member of the family. In those days, Catholicism as the predominant faith and Islam as the faith of the minorities coexisted in Spain. Christians considered the ideal for every woman to be as pure and the Virgin Mary. Both the faiths however laid emphasis on curtailing women’s sexuality which they considered to be vulnerable to the temptation of the devil, as women lacked the faculty of reason.

African familial structure too was thoroughly patriarchal, but the matriarchal lineage was given due importance. However for matters like inheritance and arrangements pertaining to conjugal life paternal lineage was of sole importance. Politics was a considered a man’s sphere, hence there were no important female political figures, excepting the Queen Mother. African society had women who worked as traders, unlike in Iberia. They also had the autonomy to manage their share of property without any patriarchal control, unlike Iberian women. In matters of religion, there were innumerable deities who were female. Almost all of them were associated with the virtue of fertility in some way or the other. Women had to undergo the risk laden procedure of genital mutilation, so that they could maintain their sexual purity.

Families in the Americas were unique as the female children considered their mothers as their progenitor while the males their fathers. But in matters of marriage, the groom exclusively decided the fate of the bride after the fulfillment of the wedding ceremony. In the political sphere, like the other two societies discussed above, women had very limited role to play. Politics was the sole prerogative of elite and the noble women, and the men of course. With regard to inheritance of property, the prospects for women were nil, across all the civilizations, with an exception for womanly commodities like jewelleries and clothes. Few women even indulged in trade like African women did. From the religious perspective, women were highly revered as each one of them were considered to have descended from some deity or the other. Their virginity was a hallmark of their honour, hence pre-marital sex was a taboo. Efforts to control women’s sexuality differed across the many civilizations of the Americas.

The position of women in Iberia, Africa and the Americas have by and large been the same, that is of subordination to men, albeit with a very minor degree of difference.

References

Socolow, Susan Migden. The women of colonial Latin America. Cambridge University Press, 2015.