This text outline omits illustrations.
Child Brides and Patriarchy in Ancient Mexico
Child marriage among the Aztecs (Spanish version published in Historia Mexicana, no. 181, 1996)
Three questions or debates:
1. did couples marry young or old?
2. was population declining (child/couple ratio too low)?
3. were households nuclear?
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Context: Mexican marriage systems, 1540 - 1990 (% women married aged 15 or more years)
Source: The Book of Tributes by S.L. Cline (INAH, v. 549)
- Census listings by Aztec scribes, written in Nahuatl on fig-bark paper, according to prehispanic conventions (transcribed and translated by S.L. Cline).
Museo de Antropología, Mexico City: “Here is the house of someone named...”
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Debate #1: Age at marriage
Before the conquest, did the Nahuas marry at relatively older ages (25 years for females according to Gruzinski and others)?
A different black legend: After the conquest did Spanish overlords and priests force Indians to marry at young ages (to increase tribute and parish fees)?
Marriageways of the nahuas
Marriageways of the nahuas. conyugal unions
Four characteristics of all conyugal unions in this document (800 pairs, only 1 Christian)
1. joint residence of man and woman
2. permancence of union, until death
3. children (or explanation of why none)
4. marriage necessary to attain adulthood
Evidence of precocious marriage among the Nahuas:
I. The text itself, in Quauhchichinollan:
1. 94% of adult females were married or widowed (compared with 78% of males)
2. “not yet married” was noted by one scribe for some 50 families. Of: 12 unmarried girls 9 years of age or older, 7 are characterized as “not yet married”.
Proofs in the text itself (continued):
Proofs in the text itself (continued):
3. “Here are the Quauhchichinollan people; all of them total 135 houses. Here are the married men who are still just together with other people…a total of 152.
“Here are the ... ...unmarried young men: 80. ...unmarried young women: 24 [ojo].
“Here are the widows: 70 [64 widows but only 6 widowers].
“Here are the children: 226.”
Evidence of precocious marriage among the Nahuas:
High rates of sterility: “they have not yet had children” [surviving children?] 40 couples w/out children married 2 years 24 3 years 15 5 years
The problem of sex: 6 most common names for each
Teyacapan 165 (First one)
Centehua 42 (Mine, My woman)
Matlalihuitl 63 (Rich Feather)
Nochhuetl 52 (Ideal Bean)
Demography, sex ratios:
1. never-married: ages 0-9: 113 males 100 females 10+ 328 100 15+ 415 100
2. widowed: 14:151, or 10 males per 100 females
3. combined (not-currently-married males 15+ divided by like females): 180/191 = 94 marriageable males per 100 marriageable females
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Demography, percents and averages:
Demography, percents and averages:
4. Ever-married females, aged: 10-14: 50% married or widowed 15-19: 95% id. 20-24: 98% id. 25+: 100% id.
5. Average marriage age (SMAM) = 12.7 years for females (+/-1 year) 19.4 years for males (+/-1 year)
Other evidence of precocious marriage among the Nahua
The Codex Mendoza (1540) shows the life stages of boys and girls: marriage is celebrated at age 15 (and not at 18 or 20 as most historians state):
The Codex Mendoza: life at age 13 and 14 years
Marriage (at 15)
Other texts pointing to precocious marriage
Viceroy Enriquez (1577): “siendo costumbre en tiempo de su infidelidad casarse casi en naciendo porque no llegava muchacha a doze años que no se casase.”
Conclusions
Females: all indicators support the hypothesis of extremely precocious marriage for females.
Males: marry substantially older than females.
Is this pattern a matter of patriarchy? - fathers hoard sons - daughters marry early to attract sons-in-law into paternal household
Average age of union in 1540 compared with 1826: (note great increase)
(Note: 1826 municipal data include the villages of 1540.)
“Debate” #2: meaning of the “child”/couple ratio?
(226 +80 + 24 +70=400 others) (135+152=287 couples)
- Does this mean “population in decadence”?
- or simply extremely precocious marriage?
That is, in demographic terms:
- Are there too few children (numerator)?
- Or too many couples (denominator)?
“Child”/Couple index in 1540 compared with 1930
1540: 3.6 persons per couple that is, only 1.6 children, relatives, and others per couple
1930: 5.8 persons per couple or 3.8 children, relatives and others per couple.
Common sense: too few children
Test: Apply 1540 marriage rates to 1930
If 1930 had the same marriage rates as 1540,
How many fewer “children” would there have been in 1930?
(Or how many more couples in 1930?)
The answer: half as many children/others (and almost twice as many couples)
Observed “Children” (plus others)
3.8 = 1930 w/1930 marriage rates
2.2 real difference in favor of 1930
Counterfactual “Children” (plus others)
2.0 = 1930 w/1540 marriage rates
0.4 difference if 1930 had 1540 rates
Applying 1540s precocious marriage pattern to 1930 shows that 4/5 of difference is due to marriage
2.2 = total difference 1930-1540 (3.8-1.6)
1.8 = difference due to marriage (3.8-2.0)
0.4 = difference due to mortality (2.0-1.6)
of the 2.2 difference, 1.8 (82%) was due to precocious marriage
only 0.4 (18%) “was due to “demographic decadence.”
Conclusions, the Amerindian mode of reproduction
1. Precocious marriage: a solution to high mortality, a high pressure demographic regime (paleolithic).
2. Societies that did not learn to maximize their reproduction, disappeared.
3. Those that did, survived--and survived the biological conquest of the Americas, “the greatest demographic catastrophe in human history” (Woodrow Borah).
Debate #3: the nuclear family in the past
Peter Laslett y Richard Wall, Family & Household in Past Time:
“It is simply untrue as far as we can yet tell that there was ever a time or place where the complex family was the universal background to the ordinary lives of ordinary people.”
Nuclear versus complex (extended) family
Was the extended family (parents children and grandchildren) relatively rare in the past?
What was the role of mortality in determining the frequency of extended families in the past?
Eurocentric theory (Laslett and Wall) versus Amerindian reality (Nahuas)
Nahuas had very high mortality: life expectancy at birth less than 20 years.
Nevertheless, many complex families: 52.3% of rural Nahuas lived as extended kin (compared with less than 20% in Europe--even where extended families were most common).
Cemithualtin (those around a patio): the importance of kin
Nahua households (cemithualtin): “those who live in a house” “people who live in only one house” “those from a patio,” etc.
99% live with kin: 47% as spouse or children of head; 52% as extended kin of head.
1% have no kin ties with the head (3 orphans, 20 servants and 1 [Indian] slave).
Household H-38 9 people, 3 generations
Rules of household formation (inferred). The head is:
1. male (311 of 315 households)
2. married (97%) or recently widowed (3%).
3. the one who has the most sons resident (or who has the oldest son resident).
Household Composition
Brother of the head: 135 37 not married 98 married (plus 2 recently widowed). 90 younger than the head; 8 older.
26 mother of head 40 mother-in-law of the head
1/5 of kin are in-laws (related to head by marriage, not blood)
5 complete conjugal families 4 generations, 3 married brothers
Seven of the most frequent kin ties
Child (son or daughter) 596
4 lateral extensions, 2 complete conjugal families 2 incomplete (widows+children)
Conclusions, households:
1. Nahua households were large (ave. = 8) and complex (75% contained two or more conjugal families)
2. Mortality, rather than braking, accellerated the formation of complex families.
3. Of greater importance than mortality were social constraints: Nahua offspring formed new households with the birth of a child, not simply with marriage.
Conclusions, social flexibility:
1. Marriage norms and family forms are social constructions and are highly plastic, even in Mexico.
2. Marriage age (including informal unions) has increased greatly over the centuries in Mexico, from as little as 13 years in rural “Morelos” five centuries ago to as much as 22 years by 1930.
3. Likewise, complex families have declined from 75% in 1540 to 15% in 1930.
The future of marriage in Mexico?
Mexico has its own marriage norms--most women marry (around age 21) and remain in conjugal unions until death (very different from what Oscar Lewis taught).
Average age at union (SMAM, 1990)
By language spoken: Males Females Indian 22.7 19.8 Spanish 25.1 23.0 Both 23.1 21.2