Having begun it as a history of women’s education in New Spain, the author expanded this study to produce a general account of contemporary ideas about women, their condition, their roles, and other aspects of their lives. This is the first attempt at a general history of women in the colonial period, and the author has explored an impressive variety of primary and secondary sources as disparate as literature, sermons, notary records (some sixteenth century and others of various notaries from the years 1640 and 1740), travelers’ accounts, religious archives, chronicles, reports of ecclesiastical visitations, and censuses. Pilar Gonzalbo has displayed energy and initiative in this undertaking.
The heart of the book is still the section on education, which includes a discussion of formal and informal educational institutions. Only one of these institutions (La Enseñanza) has previously received a detailed history, and part of an agenda for research might be the production of individual histories.
The comprehensive character of this work has been facilitated by more than a decade of historical investigation in the field of education by Elisa Luque Alcaide, Dorothy Tanck Estrada, Josefina Muriel, Carmen Castañeda, Asunción Lavrin, José María Kobayashi, Pilar Foz y Foz, Ernesto Moneses Morales, as well as many others. Given the encyclopedic nature of this work, it is regrettable that the publisher failed to include an index. It is also disappointing to see a number of works, listed only with author and date in the footnotes, that are absent from the bibliography.
Despite these minor problems, this work on the history of women in New Spain provides a framework and sources for new research. For example, by a close reading of prescriptive literature we might be able to separate misogyny from useful guides to skills necessary to women and their families. Histories of material culture should enable us to place issues in different perspectives. Comparative geographic and gender studies on the history of education would be helpful in evaluating successes and failures. In her closing sentence, the author notes the persistence of attitudes formed during the colonial period. Rather than a conclusion, this statement supplies an agenda for future investigation.
