A Wife's Dilemma: Legal And Extralegal Responses To Patriarchy And Domestic Violence In Colonial Lima, 1600-1640

This thesis examines the experience of women in colonial Lima in the Viceroyalty of Peru. The patriarchal society of Latin America left women at a distinct disadvantage. They were the inferior sex, subject to the control of their male counterparts, at least in theory. Focusing on married couples in Lima from 1600-1640, this thesis describes the hardships wives of Peru experienced and the ways they responded to their mistreatment. I will join a body of growing literature that shows how women in Peru had access to the courts and often sought divorces from their husbands as a means to be liberated from their abuse. This was not, however, their only option for recourse. This thesis argues that women also used extralegal tactics, namely flight from their husbands, as a means to avoid and prevent mistreatment. Separating themselves from their husbands illustrates the power and control that wives had in the marriage and over their own bodies, despite social ideas about their weak, inferior status.