Article
Spanish
ID: <
oai:doaj.org/article:3833a1ee355e48109857953819533e18>
Abstract
The stability of the Spanish empire in America depended not only on an organised economy to sustain metropolitan areas and their domains, but also on a number of political, social, religious and cultural conditions, without which imperial order could run the risk of disentangling in the extent of its delicate geography, and of the equally complex social, ethnocultural and political caleidoscope. One of the fundamental pillars of the imperial system was the family formed through religious marriage. Marriage in America, as was the case in Europe, was the fundamental and most stable institutional core, despite the transformations experienced over time, and the basis of the family. Family conflicts and violence constantly challenged the solidity of this social construction. In fact, some common phenomena contributed much more to this social breakdown: castees, i.e. the different ethnic groups, were mixed and formed couples within and outside religious patterns, and to meet their demands they also reached authority or justice. While, from the point of view of social and political legitimacy, the classical or ‘connubio’ marriage relationship was promoted, in the reality of the various social strata there were situations of the ‘Contubernio’ class [1] (free relations, concubinato).