The Ass of a Mare and Other Scandals

Abstract

This study is concerned with attitudes towards marriage and sexuality in nineteenth-century Paraguay and with the impact of politics and legislation on these issues. Analyzing the politics of the Paraguayan dictators Francia and Carlos Antonio López and confronting these with census data as well as parish and court records suggests that although laws and social politics could hardly change deep-rooted patterns of behavior they could nevertheless strengthen prevailing trends. Census data for the mid-nineteenth century reveal a very high proportion of female-headed households and illegitimate births, especially in the capital. In the Paraguayan case these phenomena cannot be attributed to economic modernization but only to better work opportunities for women in the urban centers. These results also lead to the rejection of the theory that present Paraguayan family structures are primarily the result of the demographic imbalance of the sexes after the Triple-Alliance-War. They show that female-headed households and illegitimate births were already prevailing in Paraguay before the cataclysm.