It was the third annual international colloquium on "The History of Women and Gender in Mexico," and Friday's audience at the University of Utah listened attentively as a professor told the true story of the passionate affair of Carmen and Enrique, a couple who lived in Mexico in the later 19th century. Kathryn Sloan of the University of Arkansas read transcripts of their love letters, written in 1892.
Enrique was a 23-year-old carpenter and Carmen was 14 or 15. Neither had reached what was then legal marrying age for their respective genders. So when they eloped, her mother had the right to have Enrique arrested under the "rapto" laws. Sloan translated the court testimonies as well as the love letters.
Before they eloped, Enrique wrote Carmen a letter calling her "darling" and saying he would never leave her. His intention was not to have sex and abandon her, but to become her husband.
She left her home willingly to go and live with him, Carmen testified. Her mother, she told the court, was cruel to her.
Her mother beat her and also beat Enrique. Carmen said her mother would do anything to stop the love affair. The judge did not sentence Enrique to jail but rather encouraged Carmen's mother to let the marriage go forth.
The long-ago lovers illustrate a milestone in women's history in Mexico, Sloan explained. By the late 1800s in Mexico, young lovers routinely flauted laws that were designed to support "arranged" marriages. Young men were supposed to be arrested for "seducing" a young woman because they had deprived her parents of their right to choose her husband. The young lovers had sinned in the eyes of the church.
But by this time in history, Mexican judges tended to consider individual freedoms, Sloan said. All a girl had to do was tell a judge she went willingly and her boyfriend could become her husband. No jail time for him — and her parents had to give the couple a dowry.
Friday's audience may have included students who are majoring in Latin studies, international studies or gender studies. But actually all Utahns should be interested in Mexican history, said associate professor Susie Porter, who organized the event. "The ties between Mexico and Utah are growing rapidly. As much as 14 percent of Utah's population claims Hispanic heritage, so the history of Mexico is increasingly our history as well."
Sloan was joined in her discussion by Laura Benitez Barba from the University of Guadalajara, Saydi Cecilia Nunez Cetina from the College of Mexico and Silvia Arrom from Brandeis University. Sloan and Arrom's words were translated into Spanish and Barba and Cetina's words were translated into English.
The whole idea of "rapto" laws (which might refer to rape but more often had to do with elopement and seduction) imply, to many people, male dominance, Sloan said. But in her research she found a number of young women who engineered their own elopements.
Sloan studied 209 cases of young women who willingly eloped between the years of 1850 and 1920. She studied only working-class families, because when wealthy families went to court, the judges did tend to side with the parents.
Sloan found the majority of those who tried to get a girl's seducer charged with "rapto" were single mothers of the girl. They were either widows or never-married mothers. They were often concerned that the young man could not support their daughter. This was Carmen's mother's main objection to Enrique, it turned out.
The role of gossip in legal cases in Mexico in the 19th century was also addressed during the History of Women and Gender conference. Other topics included women in the Mexican drug trade, the politics of representation, women in the middle class, gender and work and cross-border histories.
E-mail: susan@desnews.com