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Chapter Reference: Colonial Crucible; Postcolonial Blues
Traditional Spanish and Portuguese gender ethics, conceived as the code of honor, dominated relations between Latin American men and women from the colonial period into the 1900s. At least this was true for men and women whose ideas about gender were basically Iberian, and who could afford to pay the material cost of maintaining honor. The code of honor differentiated strongly between sorts of behavior proper for men and for women. Men and women had different traditional roles to play, and honor was the measure of how well they played them. In other words, the famous "double standard," a phrase used in English to describe attitudes that permit men to do what women must not do, was basic to the honor system. While the traditional honor system is far from what most people today consider an ideal standard of gender ethics, its power over people's minds before the twentieth century should not be underestimated. Students approaching the history of the honor system in Latin America, whether during the colonial period or through oppositions to it in the 1900s, should be sure to consider the code of honor in Iberia and how it governed gender roles and social hierarchy.
Questions for Analysis and Further Reflection:
- What social hierarchy did the honor code establish in Spain and Portugal during the colonial period? Were there ways in which people could challenge their "assigned places?"
- What challenges did the honor system face in the twentieth century, and how has the code of gender ethics changed across Latin America since the 1950s?
Bibliography: (Titles with ** are good starting places.)
** Johnson, Lyman, and Sonya Lipsett-Rivera, eds. The Faces of Honor: Sex, shame, and
Violence in Colonial Latin America. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,
1998.
The Faces of Honor is one of a few recent collections of scholarly essays that give students a chance to explore the functioning of the honor system in widely separated parts of colonial Latin America.
Pitt-Rivers, Julian Alfred. The Fate of Shechem, or The Politics of Sex: Essays in the
Anthropology of the Mediterranean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
A compelling and accessible account of the system in its Mediterranean origins.
** Twinam, Ann. Public Lives, Private Secrets: Gender, Honor, Sexuality, and Illegitimacy
in Colonial Spanish America. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999.
A broad look at the honor system in colonial Latin America.
Other Resources:
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