In Mexico, Christian marriage was introduced later and more slowly than baptism. But as Pierre Ragon argues, the rules governing Christian marriage altered the structure of indigenous society far more profoundly than did the often nominal practice of baptism. The range of kin prohibited as marriage partners, the requirements of mutual consent, monogamy, and indissolubility all challenged basic social relationships, including parent-child relations, kinship ties, and political and economic interactions. The Spanish Catholic concept of free choice of a marriage partner, for example, challenged the usual role of daughters in relation to their parents with respect to marriage; the restriction of only one spouse eliminated a powerful tool for making multiple political alliances. But the most disruptive interference in indigenous society stemmed from the definition of kinship.
Spanish kinship terms differed fundamentally from those in the Nahua and Tarascan languages; confession manuals and catechisms indirectly reflected as much. Those designed for use by Spaniards paid roughly equal attention to belief in God and the prohibition against stealing, while those designed for use with indigenous peoples devoted most of their space to defining acceptable kinship relations, the nexus of sexual and kinship relations, and aspects of Christian marriage.
The difficulties of translating these terms and of understanding the indigenous concepts were symptoms of the profound difference in the way the two societies were organized; and the imposition of Spanish Catholic terms signaled a redefinition of social relationships. Native ways of cementing political relationships were altered, because the Catholic kinship rules forbade certain forms of marriage between political allies. Inheritance of both economic goods and claims to political leadership that stemmed from legitimate marriage were limited by Christian definitions of kinship. As Ragon shows, however, the Spanish clergy often compromised their religious requirements for political reasons. They sanctioned the most politically or economically advantageous marriages among the indigenous leadership rather than the first ones, as canon law mandated (p. 57).
Furthermore, despite the ideological claims of Spanish colonialists that the priests were simply engaging in a religious exercise and not challenging any fundamental aspect of indigenous society, Ragon shows that Christian marriage requirements forced considerable social and cultural readjustment from the outset. While the organization of Ragon’s book is not as coherent as French historical writing usually is, the subject matter—and the attention to the often-neglected Tarascan population—make this book essential for students of New World marriage practices and early Spanish-Indian interactions.
