Women's Lives in Colonial Quito

Women's Lives in Colonial Quito
Author :
Publisher : University of Texas Press
Total Pages : 325
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780292779938
ISBN-13 : 0292779933
Rating : 4/5 (933 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Women's Lives in Colonial Quito by : Kimberly Gauderman

Download or read book Women's Lives in Colonial Quito written by Kimberly Gauderman and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What did it mean to be a woman in colonial Spanish America? Given the many advances in women's rights since the nineteenth century, we might assume that colonial women had few rights and were fully subordinated to male authority in the family and in society—but we'd be wrong. In this provocative study, Kimberly Gauderman undermines the long-accepted patriarchal model of colonial society by uncovering the active participation of indigenous, mestiza, and Spanish women of all social classes in many aspects of civil life in seventeenth-century Quito. Gauderman draws on records of criminal and civil proceedings, notarial records, and city council records to reveal women's use of legal and extra-legal means to achieve personal and economic goals; their often successful attempts to confront men's physical violence, adultery, lack of financial support, and broken promises of marriage; women's control over property; and their participation in the local, interregional, and international economies. This research clearly demonstrates that authority in colonial society was less hierarchical and more decentralized than the patriarchal model suggests, which gave women substantial control over economic and social resources.


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