( 1 reviews )
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Posted: Jan 27 2009
While we may rightfully praise our Democracy, this book, Female Citizens, Patriarchs, and the Law in Venezuela, 1786-1904, goes a long way to prove that it is a mistake to judge Latin American politics by our own experiences in the United States. Though the book focuses exclusively on issues in Venezuela, the book easily applies to all Latin American countries: with few exceptions, Spanish Law and customs were equally implemented in all the colonies, and many of the issues affecting women (and men) in Venezuela, had counterparts in other Latin American colonies. The author, Arlene J. Diaz, has researched the Judicial Archives, and used 578 cases involving women as litigants as the basis of her story, with augmenting information from other well known sources. It is a fascinating look at the complex, and paradoxical world of Venezuela under the archaic traditions and double standards from a culture that was no longer part of the young country's future--yet all those elements have remained ingrained in its people. But don't be fooled by the title. While the book deals with the reasons and results of cases involving women and the Ecclesiastical and Secular courts, and the progress or lack of in women's rights, the book is really about the history of Venezuela from the point of view of an insider who has spent time thinking about all the issues which have made the country, its government, its people, and ideals, work, and fail. Here is the story of an elite group of men who built their power through the use of archaic secular, and ecclesiastical, laws brought to the Colonies from Spain. In turn, these men were ruled by an inflated sense of superiority, a false code of morals, and a double standard in everything they did. Yet, in spite of, or maybe because of these qualities, they were able to succeed: in their independence, in granting slaves their freedom in 1854, and in establishing harmonious racial relationships in spite of the old guard's fanatical adherence to their "purity" of blood and religion. Here is a country that was influenced by everything French, yet did not seek its independence from Spain until Napoleon installed a puppet king in Madrid. This, too, is the country where women were invisible, not out of their own volition, but because men made them so. Yet, these women took their husbands or lovers to court for rape, mistreatment, abuse, seduction, divorce, and abandonment; and when civil marriage was instituted in 1873, it was many of these women who chose to live outside of marriage in order to preserve their independence. Living in the shadow of a Constitution which entitled them to equality and all the benefits of the law--but for one small caveat; they were not men--these women, slowly but continuously, striving for their independence, became an indirect mirror for the future of the country. This book is a page turner, and the author, Alene J. Diaz, writes with ease and intelligence.
