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Popular Culture, Violence, and Religion in Gloria's Story

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2010

John W. Wertheimer
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Extract

One of the most vexing challenges accompanying any attempt to reconstruct the legal history of the family is deciding how much interpretive weight to assign to social factors as opposed to legal factors. “Gloria's Story” is loaded with social history, in part because it focuses on a small group of decidedly non-elite characters. It discusses non-legal matters as big as the impact of wealth concentration on the Guatemalan family and as small as the social significance of home births, as opposed to hospital births, in Quetzaltenango during the 1960s. Nonetheless, the most important factors driving the analysis are legal, not social. The article's central argument—that “modernizing” legal reforms adopted in Guatemala since the mid-nineteenth century have fortified, not weakened, adulterous concubinage—emphasizes the effects of legal change.

Type
Forum: Response
Information
Law and History Review , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , Summer 2006 , pp. 447 - 454
Copyright
Copyright © the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois 2006

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References

1. See, for instance, Rivas, Elisa Fernández, “Psicometría de la actuación mental del adolescente guatemalteco” (Thesis: Facultad de humanidades, Universidad Autónoma de San Carlos, 1952)Google Scholar; Shaw, Aura Beatriz Lima, “La disciplina y la formación del adolescente” (Thesis: Escuala Facultativa de humanidades de Quetzaltenango, Universidad Autonoma de San Carlos de Guatemala, 1965)Google Scholar; and Saco, Gustavo, Elementos de psicología de la adolescencia (Guatemala: editorial del ministerio de educación Pública, 1952)Google Scholar.

2. one highly educated woman recalled learning about sexual reproduction in a biology class, but “even in that context, there was no discussion of pregnancy avoidance and no recommendation regarding the proper age to commence sexual activity.” Sully Samayoa elizondo to John Wertheimer, 9 Sept. 2005, e-mail communication. Translation by John Wertheimer. my deepest thanks go to Sully, her helper, and her interview subjects.

3. VII Censo de Población, 1964 (Guatemala: Dirección General de estadística, 1971), tomo II, 121Google Scholar, Cuadro XLI, “Porcentaje de asistencia escolar de la población de 7 años y más por sexo según grupos de edad en la república.”

4. Gloria Julia Díaz Peralta, born oct. 28, 1964, Registro de Nacimientos, tomo 77, p. 518, no. 31, Registro Civil, Quetzaltenango.

5. VII Censo de Población, 1964 (Guatemala: Dirección General de estadística, 1971), tomo III, 372Google Scholar, cuadro 15: “Población feminina de 15 años y más y número de hijos nacidos vivos.” A different table in the same census suggests substantially higher levels of teenage motherhood in Guatemala in 1964. See tomo III, 377, cuadro 17: “Número de madres y número de hijos nacidos vivos que han tenido.”

6. VII Censo de Población, 1964 (Guatemala: Dirección General de estadística, 1971), tomo III, 372Google Scholar, cuadro 15.

7. Among teenage mothers, “uniteds” outnumbered “marrieds” by almost two-to-one and outnumbered “singles” by almost five-to-one. Ibid.

8. Jacqueline Bixler to John Wertheimer, 4 oct. 2005, e-mail message. my Davidson College colleague Alberto hernández Chiroldes agrees with Bixler that at least a mild taboo has suppressed discussion of adulterous concubinage in Latin American popular culture. my thanks to both professors for their generous help.

9. Dillon, Sam, “how to Scandalize a Politician: Bare a Love Affair,” New York Times, 22 January 1997, A4Google Scholar.

10. márquez, Gabriel García, Cien años de soledad (Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Sudamericana, 1967)Google Scholar.

11. In the end, nevertheless, the son winds up taking his deceased father's concubine as his own. Vicens, Josefina, Los años falsos (1982; méxico: Coordinación de Difusión Cultural Dirección de Literatura, UNAm: 1987)Google Scholar. For a prime illustration of the recent trend toward critical, feminist portrayals of the casa chica, see mexican playwrite Berman's, SabinaEl suplicio del placer (1978)Google Scholar. one of the playlets included in this play is called “La casa chica.” El suplicio del placer appears in Berman, Sabina, The Theatre of Sabina Berman: The Agony of Ecstasy and Other Plays, trans. Versényi, Adam (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2002)Google Scholar. I thank Adam Versényi and Jacqueline Bixler for calling Berman's work to my attention.

12. “La casa chica,” from Fernández, Vicente Jr., El mayor de los potrillos (Sony International, 2001)Google Scholar.

13. Usigli, Rodolfo, Jano es una muchacha; pieza en tres actos (mexico, 1952), 22Google Scholar. my thanks to Francine A'ness for alerting me to Usigli's discussion of the casa chica in the prologue to this play. The remaining information in this paragraph, including the Jones quotation, comes from may Summer Farnsworth to John Wertheimer, 4 october 2005, e-mail message.

14. La casa chica (Mexico, directed by Roberto Gavaldón, 1949)Google Scholar; Rosa de dos aromas (film 1989, based on Emilio Carballido's 1986 play)Google Scholar.

15. Senda prohibida (1958 Televisa telenovela, written by Fernanda Villeli, a.k.a. maría ofelia Villenave Garza de Fuentes-Berain).

16. Jacqueline Bixler to John Wertheimer, 3 october 2005, e-mail message. my thanks to Jacqueline Bixler for her willingness to share some of her cultural expertise with me.

17. Guatemala, Memory of Silence = Tz'inil na'tab'al; Report of the Commission for Historical Clarification, Conclusions and Recommendations (Guatemala City: Comisión para el esclarecimiento histórico, 1998)Google Scholar. Available on line at: http://shr.aaas.org/guatemala/ ceh/report/english/toc.html.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid.

20. Selected docket books ( Registros de Procesos Penales ), compiled between 1929 and 1989 by the following criminal court: Juzgado Primero de Primera Instancia, Palacio de Justicia, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala.

21. Dillon, “how to Scandalize a Politician.”

22. VII Censo de población, 1964 (Guatemala: Dirección General de estadística, 1971), tomo II, 136Google Scholar, Cuadro LV, “Porcentaje de la población total según religión en la república. Censos 1940, 1950 y 1964”; Cleary, Edward L., “Shopping Around: Questions about Latin American Conversions,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 28.2 (April 2004): 50–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Proyecto Centroamericano de estudios Socio-Religiosos, Directorio de iglesias, organizaciones y ministerios del movimiento protestante: Guatemala (Guatemala: Servicio evangelizador Para América Latina, 1981), 61Google Scholar; VII Censo de población, 1964 (Guatemala: Dirección General de estadística, 1971)Google Scholar, tomo I, 68, Cuadro XVII; Características de la población de los locales de habitación censados (República de Guatemala: Instituto Nacional de estadística, Censos Nacionales XI de Población y VI de habitación, 2002, 2003), Cuadro 8, 23Google Scholar.