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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL AKTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 12 



children born to parents not married according to 

 the civil code, even though there may have been 

 a religious ceremony. At the same time, the 

 church does not recognize marriage under the civil 

 code, considering illegitimate all children born to 

 parents not married according to the rituals of 

 the church, even though there may have been a 

 civil ceremony. Parents who had been married 

 according to one or the other of these ceremonies 

 have naturally felt that there was at least some 

 reason to consider their children legitimate and 

 this fact has tended to reduce any stigma which 

 the word "illegitimate" may have implied. As an 

 elderly inhabitant of the village once said : 



To the priest, the children of those who marry "in the 

 civil" are illegitimate, and to the registrar of births, the 

 children of those wlio marry "in the church" are illegiti- 

 mate. If you thought very much about such things as 

 that, you wouldn't get much sleep at night. 



A father maj' legally recognize an illegitimate 

 child, if he is not the result of an incestous or 

 adulterous union. Recognition enables the child 

 to share in inheritance equally with the father's 

 legitimate offspring. 



SPINSTERS 



The expectation laid down in the local mores is 

 that every girl will marry. "If she gets to be 17 

 or 18 years of age," said a woman in the village, 

 "and she hasn't yet found her a man, people will 

 begin to say, 'She's getting old; why doesn't she 

 marry?' " 



Spinsters are relatively rare in the community. 

 Tliere are only five in the village. One is epileptic 

 and one is insane. Of another, a villager said, 

 "She's quite a woman. She's too outspoken and 

 opinionated to get a man. No one would have the 

 courage to ask her. She will take a stick and set 

 out afoot for Boa Vista, alone." Of the fourth, a 

 sister said, "She just didn't care to get married. 

 Wlien a young man would speak to father about 

 her, she'd say she was too young. After a while, 

 no one came around any more." Of the fifth, a 

 sister said, "She was the oldest of us children. 

 She took care of the house and helped all of us 

 get married but for some reason she herself never 

 did." A woman 29 years of age, on a farm near 

 the village is also unmarried. "She's turned down 

 men who asked her," said a neighbor, "because the 

 first one she wanted, her father objected to him." 



A seventh woman is considered by some to be a 

 solteironu (spinster) because "she is 26 years old 

 and hasn't married yet." Several men have 

 courted her but "they always break off." "I don't 

 know why," said a neighbor, "it must be fate." 



An unmarried woman is at a disadvantage both 

 economically and sociologically. Her economic 

 value in the community is slight. She is apt to 

 be considered a burden by her parents, especially 

 if they are poor. "Marriage is best for a woman," 

 said a mother of five and sister of one of the spin- 

 sters in the village. "She should get a husband 

 to help earn her living. Always for a woman, 

 it's better to marry." At the same time, since the 

 spinster is not a party to many of the common 

 interests and experiences of almost all other 

 women of her age, she tends to live in a world 

 apart; to be treated differently by those who are 

 married and have children, and thus to think of 

 herself as different, if not abnormal. 



Of the five spinsters in the village, one is 73 

 years of age. She owns a house, which she shares 

 with a bachelor cousin. Together with two mar- 

 ried sisters who live in the village, she also owns 

 a small sitio. Her relatives help support her. 

 "One gives this, another that," said a sister. "Per- 

 haps money, perhaps not. But all help." The 

 woman who is epileptic lives with her widowed 

 father and his younger children. The woman 

 wlio is insane, lives with her mother, who is a 

 widow, and an older brother. The fourth spin- 

 ster lives with her father and mother and four 

 bachelor brothers. The fifth shares a house with 

 a married couple; she washes clothes, cares for 

 the linen of the church, and does whatever other 

 work she can find to do about the village. The 

 sixth spinster lives with her father on a farm. 



WIDOWS 



In a community where the struggle for a living 

 is difficult, even under the most propitious circum- 

 stances, and where girls are trained only for the 

 role of wife and mother and expected to assume 

 a dependent attitude toward father and husband, 

 the lot of a widow is especially hard. A 70-year- 

 old widow said: 



My husband died when I was only 32 years of age, 

 and left me with 7 children aud another child 3 months 

 on the way. But I raised them all. I made and sold 

 all sorts of pastries. I carried them about on a tray 



