ABSTRACT

This article re-examines colonial Latin American violence and adultery through the lens of concubinage and female migration. It re-evaluates heterosexual domestic violence, the socially-acceptable conditions for women to leave relationships, and the extent to which male partners were deemed culpable for their actions. It adjusts traditional narratives that dichotomise wives and concubines to instead consider wives as concubines and how this repositioning of their social status opened new opportunities for female migration, invited tacit social acceptance, and affected concubines’ power, honour, and status in their local communities. Studying the lives of three adulterous concubines, this study argues that not only was solitary migration a fairly common experience for concubines in late colonial Bahia, but that such mobility constituted a wider strategy of feminine honour negotiation through the use of ‘honour-neutral spaces’. This article offers a new perspective on gendered experiences of mobility, domestic security, and violence in late colonial Bahia.

摘要

本文从纳妾和女性移民的角度重新审视拉丁美洲殖民时期的暴力和通奸。它重新评估了异性恋家庭暴力、女性离开关系的社会可接受条件以及男性伴侣被认为对其行为负责的程度。它调整了将妻妾一分为二的传统叙事，转而将妻子视为妃嫔，以及这种对社会地位的重新定位如何为女性迁移开辟了新的机会，引起了社会的默许，并影响了妃嫔在当地社区的权力、荣誉和地位。这项研究研究了三个通奸妃子的生活，认为孤独迁移不仅是晚期殖民巴伊亚妃子相当普遍的经历，但这种流动性构成了通过使用“荣誉中性空间”来进行女性荣誉谈判的更广泛的策略。本文提供了关于晚期殖民巴伊亚的流动性、国内安全和暴力的性别体验的新视角。