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To Make All Children Equal is a Change in the Power Structures of Society: The Politics of Family Law in Twentieth Century Chile and Latin America
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 September 2015
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In 1999, Chile became the last country in Latin America to grant full equality to all children regardless of the marital status of their parents. The Law of Filiation (Ley de Filiación) declared all children's right to know their origins, receive support from their progenitors, and participate equally in inheritance. Both supporters and critics hailed the law as transcendental, one of the most significant reforms to civil law since the promulgation of the Chilean Civil Code in 1855. On the day the law took effect, President Eduardo Frei was on hand at a civil registry office to greet the first parents arriving to solicit birth certificates, which no longer specified their children's natal status. He gave them a native quillay sapling, symbol of life and growth, adorned with a ribbon declaring, “Bienvenida, igualdad (Welcome, equality).” In succeeding months approximately 2,000,000 citizens, in a country of 15,000,000, would petition the offices of the civil registry for the new, nondiscriminatory birth certificates. One congresswoman hailed the bureaucratic flood as a “vindication of human dignity.”
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References
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12. Individuals born prior to 1857 were permitted to bring these suits, which were otherwise prohibited.
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19. Again, the highest exceptions to the single-digit rule are Sweden (11.3%) and Austria (13%), in 1960. But compare these numbers to Chile's historic low of 16.4% (1956). Once again, the lowest Latin American rates still exceeded the highest European ones. Béla Tomka, A Social History of Twentieth-Century Europe (New York: Routledge, 2013), 88; and United Nations, Demographic Yearbook, 1959.
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23. Nara Milanich, “Illegitimacy and Illegitimates,” in Minor Omissions: Children in Latin American History and Society, ed. Tobias Hecht (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), 72–101.
24. Milanich, Children of Fate, 223–24.
25. Congresos Panamericanos del Niño. Ordenación sistematica de sus recomendaciones, 1916–1963 (Montevideo: Instituto Interamericano del Niño, 1965), 158, 194.
26. “Fuchs, Rachel, “Seduction, Paternity and the Law in Fin-de Siècle France,” Journal of Modern History 72 (2000): 944–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 960; Lilienthal, Georg, “The Illegitimacy Question in German, 1900–1945. Areas of Tension in Social and Population Policy,” Continuity and Change 5 (1990): 249–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and “Feminist Movements Are Different Abroad,” New York Times, October 10, 1915, 56–57.
27. Asunción Lavrín, Women, Feminism and Social Change in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 158. These aspirations were at least partially realized in the Children's Code a few years later.
28. K. Lynn Stoner, From the House to the Streets: The Cuban Women's Movement for Legal Reform, 1898–1940 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1991), 160–1.
29. Ibid., 63–66, 67–69; 160–5.
30. Laura Gotkowitz, A Revolution for Our Rights: Indigenous Struggles for Land and Justice in Bolivia, 1880–1952 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008), 178.
31. Klein, Herbert, “‘Social Constitutionalism’ in Latin America: The Bolivian Experience of 1938,” The Americas 22 (1966): 258–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
32. Gotkowitz, Revolution for Our Rights, 101.
33. Rossana Barragán, and José Luis Roca, Regiones y poder constituyente en Bolivia. Una historia de pactos y disputas (La Paz, Bolivia: PNUD, 2005), 408.
34. Constitución Política de 1938. http://comisiondeconstitucion2002-2003.awardspace.com/cpehistoria/cpe_1938.htm (June 20, 2015).
35. Constitución de la República de Guatemala, March11, 1945, art. 76; and Wertheimer, “Gloria's Story.”
36. Constitución de la República de Guatemala, 1956. http://www.minex.gob.gt/ADMINPORTAL/Data/DOC/20100930181956036Consti1956.VerArt,1transi.Pag49.pdf (June 20, 2015).
37. Isabella Cosse, Estigmas de nacimiento. Peronismo y orden familiar, 1946–1955 (Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2006), 9.
38. Cosse, Estigmas de nacimiento, 175.
39. Rafael Rojina Villegas, “En defensa de los hijos naturales,” in Estudios jurídicos en homenaje a M. Borja Soriano (Mexico City: Editorial Porrua, 1969), 681–703.
40. Jorge Errázuriz Tagle, and Guillermo Eyzaguirre Rouse, Monografia de una familia obrera (Santiago: Imprenta Barcelona, 1903), 66.
41. Cosse, Estimas de nacimiento, 11; and Nicolas Palacios, Raza chilena, 4th ed. (Santiago: Colchagua, 1988 [1904]), 12. The concept of “orphan” in both Chilean legal and social parlance referred not only to the children of deceased parents but also to those rendered parentless by illegitimacy and parental nonrecognition.
42. However, the code gave inheritance rights only when paternity had been proven in particular ways. Lavrín, Women, Feminism, and Social Change; Birn, Anne-Emanuelle, “The National–International Nexus of Public Health,” Histôria, Ciencias, Saude-Manguinhos 13 (2006): 675–708CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Anne-Emanuelle Birn, “Uruguay's Child Rights Approach to Health: What Role for Civil Registration?” in Registration and Recognition: Documenting the Person in World History, ed. Keith Breckenridge and Simon Szreter (London: Oxford University Press, 2012). An earlier reform of Uruguayan civil law, in 1914, had legalized paternity suits; see Christine Ehrick, The Shield of the Weak: Feminism and the State in Uruguay, 1903–1933 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 2005), 80–82.
43. Constitución Política de la República de Panamá, 1946. http://bdigital.binal.ac.pa/bdp/older/constitucion1946.pdf (June 20, 2015). The Constitution of 1941 in contrast specified that parents had equal “duties” toward illegitimate children. Constitución de la República de Panamá, 1941, art. 52. http://www.organojudicial.gob.pa/cendoj/wp-content/blogs.dir/cendoj/CONSTITUCIONES_POLITICAS/constitucion_politica_1941.pdf (June 20, 2015).
44. Cuba's constitution did not specifically mention children's natal rights, but recognized nonmarital unions in language that suggested recognition of the rights of children born in them.
45. This pattern is surmised from the jurisprudence discussed in Hugo Sandoval Saavedra, Código civil boliviano. Con secciones de legislación, doctrina y jurisprudencia, vol. 2. (Sucre: Imprenta Universitaria, 1970).
46. One example of such research is Sueann Caulfield's recent work on Brazil, which shows the opposite scenario: a growing embrace of natal rights by judges in the absence of corresponding reform of civil (or constitutional) law. See “The Right to a Father's Name.”
47. Teresa Valdés and Enrique Gomáriz, eds., Mujeres Latinoamericanas en cifras (Santiago: FLACSO, 1995), 143. This volume erroneously lists Paraguay as discriminating against extramarital children, although a 1993 reform abolished a final point of discrimination by equalizing inheritance rights among all children.
48. Message from the president reprinted in Arturo Alessandri, Reformas introducidas al Código Civil y a otras leyes por la Ley. No. 10.271 (Santiago: Ediar, 1955), 161–83.
49. Alessandri, Reformas introducidas al Código Civil, 57. By the 1990s, these categories had apparently acquired still other meanings, this time in relation to relative degrees of paternal certainty. That is, hijo natural was the privileged status enjoyed by a child whose father was certain of his paternity, whereas simply illegitimate status apparently applied to those whose fathers harbored doubts about their paternity.
50. Alessandri, Reformas introducidas al Código Civil, 36
51. Bernard Gesche Muller, Investigación de la paternidad ilegítima (Concepción: Departamento de Divulgación de la Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Sociales, 1967).
52. Azun Candina, “Los hijos no matrimoniales en Chile contemporáneo. De la tragedia privada a la esperanza de la igualdad (1930–1998),” in Conservadurismo y transgresión en Chile: reflexiones sobre el mundo privado, ed. Azun Candina (Santiago: CEDEM/FLACSO, 2005): 91–123; 118, fn. 41.
53. Testimony of Sra Ministra Directora del SERNAM Josefina Bilbao, in Senate debates, Legislatura 334a, Extraordinaria, Sesión 24, January 14, 1997. In 1980, Santiago's population hovered near 3,700,000; by 1990, it had grown to 4,600,000.
54. Rosemblatt, Gendered Compromises, 154–56.
55. Nelly Hermosilla, “Informe de la Visitadora Social del Servicio de Asistencia Judicial del Colegio de Abogados de Concepción,” in Gesche Muller, Investigación de la paternidad ilegítima, 169.
56. Klubock, Contested Communities; and Rosemblatt, Gendered Compromises.
57. In this it parallels the technocratic process of family law reform that occurred during the military dictatorships in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile later in the century. Mala Htun, Sex and the State: Abortion, Divorce, and the Family under Latin American Dictatorships and Democracies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
58. Alessandri, Reformas introducidas al Código Civil, 11–12.
59. Milanich, Children of Fate, Introduction.
60. Liesl Haas, “Legislating Equality: Institutional Politics and the Expansion of Women's Rights.” PhD diss., University of North Carolina, 1999, 124.
61. Castaldi, Cesar Frigerio, “La filiación,” Revista Chilena de Derecho 1 (1974): 87–91Google Scholar. On the Allende bill, see also the remarks of Juan Hamilton Depassier, Legislatura 334a extraordinaria, Senado, Sesión 24a, January 14, 1997.
62. In the late 1970s, the dictatorship appointed a commission to design a reform of the Civil Code focusing on married women's juridical status and the marital property regime, but also including changes to filiation law. The initiative went nowhere after conservative ideologues attacked the thrust of the reform. It seems the proposed changes to filiation law were less public, and it is unclear what, if any, response they generated. Leslie Tomasello Hart, and Alvaro Quintanilla Pérez, Reformas al regimen matrimonial y de filiación (Valparaíso: EDEVAL, 1981); Htun, Sex and the State, 73–75.
63. Lazzara, Michael J., “Neoliberalism in Chile's Public Imagination,” A Contracorriente 6 (2009): 272–79Google Scholar.
64. The military junta had dissolved the Congress in 1973.
65. These proposals are mentioned in Mensaje Presidencial a la Cámara de Diputados, Nos. 198–326, July 22, 1993. In Camara de Diputados, Sesión 25, Legislatura 326, August 10, 1993. Several are discussed in greater detail in Hernán Corral Talciani, Familia y Derecho. Estudios sobre la realidad jurídica de la familia (Santiago: Universidad de los Andes, 1994), 177.
66. The bill also expanded patria potestad, a legal relationship of paternal authority that had previously applied only to legitimate children, to cover those born extramaritally, and expanded the inheritance rights of surviving spouses, a provision whose relevance willbe discussed subsequently.
67. These included the American Convention on Human Rights (also known as the Pact of San José), the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the International Pact on Civil and Political Rights.
68. Centro de Estudios de la Mujer, Argumentos para el cambio, 24, June 24, 1998. http://www.cem.cl/argumentos/ediciones/argu24.htm (June 20, 2015)
69. Senator Ramon Vega Hidalgo, Senate, Legislatura 338a ordinaria, Sesión 17a, August 4, 1998.
70. Orozimbo Fuenzalida Fuenzalida, July 2, 1998 letter to Senator Jorge Martínez Busch, reproduced in Senado, Legislatura 338a ordinaria, sesión 17a, August 4, 1998. See also Talciani, Hernán Corral, including “¿Igualdad de lo desigual? Notas sobre la equiparación jurídica entre hijos legítimos e ilegítimos,” Revista Chilena de Derecho 20 (1993): 21–37Google Scholar. This argument was also a favorite of conservative legislators.
71. Cited in Haas, “Legislating Equality,” 116.
72. Libertad y Desarrollo, Boletín 1060–07, March 21, 1997, 50.
73. Sara Navas, “Igualdad en la filiación legítima e ilegítima. Atentado contra la familia.” El Mercurio, August 11, 1996.
74. Htun, Sex and the State. It is also worth noting here the case of Argentina, where full natal equality was achieved only under Raul Alfonsín, president of the first democratic government following the end of the military dictatorship in that country, in 1983. Likewise, in Spain, the 1978 constitution marking the end of the Franco regime established natal equality, a principle fully realized in civil law reform 3 years later.
75. The regime's 1980 Constitution provided for the institution of designated senators. These positions were abolished in 2005.
76. These included Ronald McIntyre Mendoza and Olga Feliu Segovia as well as Pinochet himself, who became a senator-for-life upon his resignation as commander in chief of the army in 1998.
77. It is also worth noting that the designated senators did not vote as a block against the bill. Haas, “Legislating Equality.”
78. Frigerio Castaldi, “La filiación,” 88.
79. See, for example, Htun, Sex and the State; and Valdés, Vida en común. Chile and Malta were the last Western countries without divorce laws. Although abortion is illegal everywhere in Latin America with the exception of Cuba (and Mexico City), Chile also prohibits therapeutic abortion (abortions performed when the life of mother is at risk). This provision was passed as one of Pinochet's final acts prior to leaving power. The characterization of Chile as the most socially conservative country in Latin America recurs in the United States media; for example, Larry Rohter, “With New Leader, Chile Seems to Shuck its Strait Laces,” New York Times, March 8, 2006, A4.
80. The Bishop of Valparaíso did so in a letter presented by Senator Otero, November 20, 1996, Informe de la Comisión de Constitución, Legislación, Justicia y Reglamento.
81. Letter to Senator Martínez Busch, cited above.
82. These include Bishop Fuenzalida and the outspoken lay critic Hernán Corral Talciani, a law professor affiliated with the Universidad de los Andes, a private university with ties to Opus Dei.
83. Haas, “Legislating Equality,” 132.
84. Carrying the signatures of two bishops, this document appeared in the Catholic monthly Mensaje. Fernando Ariztia Ruiz and Javier Prado Aránguiz, “La Iglesia Católica y la Ley de Filiación,” Mensaje [June 30, 1998]. http://documentos.iglesia.cl/conf/documentos_sini.ficha.php?mod=documentos_sini&id=572&sw_volver=yes&descripcion=.
85. Haas, “Legislating Equality,” 113.
86. Roberto Muñoz Barra, Legislatura 334a extraordinaria, sesión 24a, January 14, 1997.
87. Htun, Sex and the State, 139–40. The anonymity of this informant is significant and is discussed further.
88. Libertad y Desarrollo, Boletín, 56.
89. Ibid., 58.
90. Jorge Medina, Bishop of Valparaíso, cited by Senator Otero, November 20, 1996, Informe de la Comisión de Constitución, Legislación, Justicia y Reglamento.
91. Boletín, 55.
92. The reform changed widows' status to legitimarias and increased the conjugal portion.
93. Larráñaga, “Matrimonios,” 140.
94. Claudio Pizarro, “El huacho del terrateniente,” The Clinic, April 26, 2009. http://www.theclinic.cl/2009/04/26/el-huacho-del-terrateniente/; Daniela Mohor W., and Magdalena Andrade N., “Hacia un nuevo escenario de la paternidad,” El Mercurio, April 22, 2008. http://www.emol.com/noticias/Tendencias/2008/07/23/731148/hacia-un-nuevo-escenario-de-la-paternidad-.html; Andrés López y Angela Neira, “Joven comprueba con test de ADN que es hijo de agricultor que dejó millonaria herencia,” La Tercera, December 21, 2008. http://www.latercera.com/contenido/680_86324_9.shtml; Andrés López, “Hijo no reconocido de agricultor es nombrado heredero de fortuna,” La Tercera, March 26, 2009. http://www.latercera.com/contenido/680_113441_9.shtml; and Ximena Pérez Gallegos, “Suprema condena a hermanos que revelaron secreto familiar por herencia,” El Mercurio, November 26, 2009. http://diario.elmercurio.com/detalle/index.asp?id=%7B56da33e2-269e-4b13-be68-a55143880e0b%7D
95. “Investigan a Pablo Huneeus por usurpación de nombre en juicio de paternidad,” La Tercera, March 11, 2008, 16.
96. Boletín, 58.
97. Mensaje Presidencial, Primer Trámite Constitucional, Cámara de Diputados, July 22, 1993. Other such references include Discusión General, Josefina Bilbao, Ministra Directora de SERNAM, Primer Informe Comisión de Constitución (Senado), November 20, 1996, sesión 12, Legislatura 334; Bilbao, Senado, January 14, 1997, sesión 24, Legislatura 334.
98. Boletín, 60.
99. Italics are mine; Boletín, 53.
100. Blofield, Merike, and Haas, Liesl, “Defining a Democracy: Reforming the Laws on Women's Rights in Chile, 1990–2002,” Latin American Politics and Society 47 (2005): 35–68Google Scholar.
101. That political scientist was Mala Htun. The interview took place in Santiago in June 1998 and is cited in Sex and the State, 139–40 and footnote 46. Personal communication with Mala Htun, May 2010.
102. Haas, “Legislating Equality,” 124. Personal communication with Liesl Haas, June 2010.
103. Blofield and Haas, “Defining a Democracy,” 47.
104. See, for example, the statement by Hamilton, sesión 24, January 14, 1997.
105. Boletín, 63.
106. Nikki Craske, and Sylvia Chant, Gender in Latin America (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2003), 166. The social science and policy literature often portrays households and kin networks as bulwarks of survival for the poor, lamenting the erosion of kin ties as a drain on social capital and issuing calls to support “the family” as a poverty reduction strategy.
107. Paul Posner, State, Market and Democracy in Chile: The Constraint of Popular Participation (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); and Ricardo Ffrench–Davis, Economic Reforms in Chile: From Dictatorship to Democracy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2002).
108. Tironi, Valenzuela, and Scully, “Familia en Chile: Los impactos de la modernización” in El eslabón perdido.
109. For example, in the 5 years after the reform, only 3,000 paternity cases had been decided, even as an average of 33,000 children had been born extramaritally each year. “Modificaciones a la ley. Más reclamaciones de paternidad,” El Diario del Sur, May 16, 2005; “Solicitan Cambios a Ley de Filiación,” El Mercurio, June 23, 2000.
110. Although these second reforms apparently elicited little public opposition, some conservatives objected to them. Libertad y Desarrollo, for example, referred to the further facilitation of paternity suits as “dangerous.” Boletín 3043–07, December 5, 2003, 37–44.
111. Candina, “Hijos no matrimoniales” notes that filiation reform in Chile in the 1990s originated from above, rather than filtering upward from groups in civil society demanding change. That seems to be a characteristic of natal rights generally. See, however, the related scenario of poor mothers mobilizing for child support in El Salvador: Ready, Kelley, “Child Support as a Strategic Interest: La Asociación de Madres Demandantes of El Salvador,” Gender and Development 11 (2003): 60–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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