Familia y maltrato doméstico Audiencia episcopal de Córdoba, Argentina. 1700-1850

Abstract

These few pages discuss an almost unknown face of the domestic and familiar universe in the jurisdiction of the episcopal audience in Cordoba, Argentina: coercion and domestic maltreatment in their different shades, which also apply to Buenos Aires and Latin American countries such as Mexico, Chile, Peru, Brazil and Paraguay. The breaking of a wedding promise and the family reactions show the tensions that relationships between men and women could be exposed to, even before the wedding was celebrated, as well as the coercive interventions by relatives trying to solve them. The parents’ opposition to the choices made by their children, sometimes expressed through physical punishment, reveals situations of conflict within and between families in that society. On the other hand, there was the use of violence and intimidation against fiancees to compel them to marry against their will. Brutality and maltreatment between husband and wife and between parents and children, including incestuous attacks, are problems that are also present in families of traditional societies. Their characteristics and the responses by the church and state judiciary to these situations are the main topic of this article. The – ecclesiastic and civil – sources used in this research consist of marriage cases about separation from bed and board as a means to deal with cruelty and marital maltreatment; dissensions and marriage nullification, as well as lawsuits caused by the failure to get married for the analysis of the phenomenon of reverential fear; and civil lawsuits from criminal sections to examine cases of incestuous sexual abuse. Key words: family history, marriage history, violence within the family, domestic maltreatment and abuse, social history of family and marriage.