Rituals and Sisterhoods offers a comprehensive study of single-female-headed households during the early- to mid-colonial period in Mexico. The author, Amos Megged, presents a detailed overview of the different ways of life and survival of single women, particularly women belonging to the lowest sectors of colonial society. It is a profound analysis that recovers life experiences, sociability networks, rituals and the interpersonal relationships which allowed ‘non-elite women’ to build their lives outside the cultural parameters imposed by Catholic religion.
Recounting urban experiences from Mexico City and Puebla de los Angeles, the eight chapters reconstruct the life histories of a group of women from New Spain who appealed to inquisitorial institutions to lodge disputes, request divorce or separation, justify their abandoning their households, claim inheritances, or defend themselves against accusations.
Few historiographical works question the colonial family institution as a space for the protection and security for women. In most of the studies that deal with the female experience during this historical period, home and family are conceived as the main space of female participation, as their space of safety and stability. In contrast, this book offers a completely different panorama. Focusing on the experiences of women who are mainly mestizas, Indigenous or slaves, most of whom belong to highly vulnerable population groups, the author questions this supposed security as he highlights a series of long-term social realities such as trafficking in women, child sexual abuse, informal marriages and violence in relationships.
The use of inquisitorial sources, as well as testamentary documents, among others, grants the author the possibility to go beyond the analysis of life histories and to raise a series of social problems that develop within the power dynamics of gender relations, and which are affected by other elements that complement and distinguish social dynamics such as race and social class. The book offers the following six key findings.
During the colonial period, women from the lower classes turned to institutions to divorce their husbands, accusing them of neglect, lack of trust, violence and cruelty. This sheds light on two phenomena: on the one hand, the abandonment of commoner women at an early age, which – apart from giving rise to feelings of loneliness and emotional emptiness – forced them to try to reconstruct their lives free of a guardian or legal representative who would not allow them to manage their properties or wealth; on the other, the need for the institutions of New Spain to build a system of court hearings and protection aimed at women who suffered some type of violence, and who, in one way or another, called into question the status quo of the colonial Catholic marriage system.
The women's experiences were intimately linked to the ethnic group to which they belonged, as well as to their socio-economic status. Thus, these life histories prove that belonging to the mestizo, Indigenous or mulatto sectors made women much more vulnerable than Spanish women or women with a lighter skin colour. However, the experiences of African or mulatto slave women were part of a system of violence promoted mainly by their masters, who resorted to physical punishment or sexual exploitation as disciplinary measures.
Although social class and race were determining factors for the incidence of violence against women, single mothers additionally suffered abuse that affected both their lives and those of their children. This abuse was exercised mainly by partners, who were not responsible for child support, or by the people these women worked for, who took advantage of their poverty to offer lower salaries for their work, sometimes even employing their children.
These women survived thanks to a set of female support networks, which linked single mothers or women in vulnerable conditions with neighbours or citizens who sometimes testified in their favour or granted them spaces for protection and socialisation, allowing them to find jobs, rent homes, exchange goods, childcare, etc. These networks also contributed to the construction of public and private spaces that, according to the author, strengthened the relationship of women with their neighbourhood and allowed them to build confraternities, or ‘Sisterhoods’, which helped to establish connections and economic affiliations, as well as religious practices.
The commoners belonging to the various castes who created mutual support networks were able to live sexually freer lives as single women, contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church of the time.
Finally, after a deep historical–anthropological review of religious rituals on the African continent, the author unravels the influence of Indigenous and African cultural practice in Mexico in order to identify the rituals and medicinal practices of this group of women. Megged thereby provides a reinterpretation of their Catholic devotion, illuminating a religious diversity directly opposed to the mandates of the Catholic Church and the Inquisition.
Overall, Rituals and Sisterhoods: Single Women's Households in Mexico, 1560–1750 contributes substantially to the history of women during the early- to mid-colonial period in New Spain and should be read by all those who are interested in gender history, the Catholic religion and the study of commoners during this period.
