Sexual crimes and against the family in the northeast of the “Virreinato de la Nueva Granada, 1774-1810. From the rule to the application.

Abstract

This article exposes the results of the analysis about sexual crime against the family in the northeast of the “virreinato de la Nueva Granada” at the end of the colonial regime (1774-1810). It is defined as a time when the Catholic Church imposed a moral discourse which was defined by the hispanic authorities, who controlled either the individual sexuality and also the access to the sacrament marriage. In that way, taking the methodologic proposal of the mexican historier Carmen Castañeda, this research puts in contrast the sexuality and family speech transmitted by the Catholic Church based in the judicial records, in order to clarify if this was applied in practice to the society. Nevertheless, this paper aims not only to characterized the crimes but also to analized who were the defendants; in addition this document study either the reaction in the society, based on the witnesses versión and the authority procedure. Among the conclusions obtained we can say that, despite the hardening of the legislation against sexual crimes, there was a distance from the norm in certain sectors of society where marriage could not be possible. Although there was a control, apparently, it focused mainly on the Spanish - Creole elites and urban mestizo groups