Eugenia Rodríguez’s book is a fine addition to gender, demographic, and family studies straddling the end of the colonial period and the first half of the nineteenth century. The book is a study of changing definitions of marriage, gender, and family in Costa Rica’s Central Valley at a period of increasing demographic growth, agricultural expansion (coffee), the early stages of Costa Rica’s agrarian capitalism, and the rise of a centralizing, secular state. The end result of this process, the author argues, was continuity with a Spanish patriarchal family model rather than change in gender relations. In contrast to what scholars have found in New Spain and Brazil, considerations such as emotion and individual choice would become important but only for the upper classes. However, in the name of social harmony and under the aegis of reason, the republican state would attenuate the harshness of the old model by expanding its...
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
Book Review|
August 01 2001
Hijas, novias y esposas: Familia, matrimonio y violencia doméstica en el Valle Central de Costa Rica (1750–1850)
Hijas, novias y esposas: Familia, matrimonio y violencia doméstica en el Valle Central de Costa Rica (1750–1850)
. By Sáenz, Eugenia Rodríguez. Heredia
: Editorial de la Universidad Nacional
, 2000
. Illustrations. Tables. Notes. Bibliography
. 178
pp. Paper
.Hispanic American Historical Review (2001) 81 (3-4): 780–782.
Citation
Leonardo Hernández; Hijas, novias y esposas: Familia, matrimonio y violencia doméstica en el Valle Central de Costa Rica (1750–1850). Hispanic American Historical Review 1 August 2001; 81 (3-4): 780–782. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00182168-81-3-4-780
Download citation file:
Advertisement
37
Views