Marital Crimes in New Spain

The abuse of power, violence, and control over women is not new news, it is a situation that has not distinguished between races or eras. In this case, in 1808, Francisco de los Santos Mateo is tried for the alleged murder of Felipa Atanacia, his wife. His parents tried to hide it, but his younger brother was the one who decided to speak the truth.

Since ancient times, in the various cultures of the world, men have enjoyed privileges, powers, and freedoms, and through political, social, and cultural structures have exercised control over women, not simply by depriving them of their rights, but by the extent of determining their daily actions and behaviors based on the conjugal dynamics that the same man came to establish.

The novo-Hispanic era was not a period in which control over wives, concubines, and lovers through force and abuse of power went unnoticed since among the criminal accusations and lawsuits in the towns and cities of New Spain there were cases of spousal abuse against women, a crime that in different governments has been punished based on different conceptions of marital violence and for which multiple regulations and penalties have been developed.

One of these cases occurred in 1808, in the town of Zacualpan, in the jurisdiction of the State of Mexico, where Francisco de los Santos Mateo was imprisoned for the alleged murder of his wife Felipa Atanacia. Along with him, his parents, Marcos Juan and Josefa Andrea were accused of complicity. Given this situation, the detainees asked to be pardoned for this accusation, since they claimed to have evidence that Felipa was seriously ill, which had caused her death.

Faced with this process, the court of the Holy Office began the investigations once again. First of all, the opinion of a surgeon was taken into account, who determined that Felipa died because of blows and cuts, added to this were the testimonies of several neighbors and of Francisco's younger brother, a 14-year-old boy named José Macario, who assured that it was not the first time that his brother beat his wife and that his parents also exercised violence against her. José Macario testified that he witnessed the murder.

The authorities determined through the testimonies that Francisco was the legitimate culprit of Felipa Atanacia's death, they denied him any request for a pardon that would allow him to be released from prison. He was the only one who remained in prison since his father died during the investigations inside the prison and his mother was released, but with the antecedent of having participated as an accomplice in the crime.

Source: AGN