¹ Contra Juan Noriega, por rapto de seducción en Primitiva Franco, Oaxaca 1885, Juzgado Primero Criminal, Archivo Histórico Municipal de la Ciudad de Oaxaca (AHMCO). The court never determined the exact age of Primitiva because her mother claimed she was 13; Primitiva claimed to be 16 and no baptismal record could be found in parish records. The law only protected virgins under age 16 who voluntarily eloped with their suitors. Señora Teresa actually turned to the court three times. Six years earlier, her orphaned niece who lived with her also eloped with her sweetheart. The case is interesting because it charges the suitor and another woman as an accomplice to the rapto. The Señora initiates the case against the young man, noting that she surprised them on numerous occasions in “illicit relations.” Unfortunately, the file contains no result. See Contra Benito Meixueire por rapto y Manuela Mendoza por complicidad en el delito, Oaxaca 1879, Juzgado Primero Criminal, AHMCO.

² Contra Franciso Mimiago por rapto de seducción en Primitiva Franco, Oaxaca 1886, Juzgado Primero Criminal, AHMCO. In this case, Primitiva claimed to be 20 years old, but doctors determined by means of a physical exam to assess pelvic and breast development that she was probably 16 or 17 years old. I discuss how men and women acted out masculinity and femininity in the scripts of rapto/seduction in “Runaway Daughters: Women’s Masculine Roles in Elopement Cases in Nineteenth-Century Mexico” in Rubenstein, Anne and González, Victor Macias eds., Mexico Uncut: Performance, Space, and Masculine Sexuality after 1810 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, forthcoming 2007).Google Scholar

³ As a reproduction of male power and domination, see Gutiérrez, Ramón When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500–1846 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), pp. 215–216.Google Scholar As a faint-hearted response challenging dominant culture, see Martínez-Alier, Verena Marriage, Class and Colour in Nineteenth-Century Cuba: A Study of Racial Attitudes and Sexual Values in a Slave Society (London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 100–141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴ The seduction genre of literature through time has received ample scholarly attention. Patricia, Seed discusses seduction in Spanish literature and theater, see her “Narratives of Don Juan: The Language of Seduction in 17th Century Hispanic Literature and Society,” Journal of Social History (Summer 1993), pp. 745–768.Google Scholar For Europe and Canada, see Holloway-Ramírez, Susan, “Seducers as Agents of Social Change: A Selected History of the Discourse of Seduction in European and Canadian Writing” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Manitoba, 2002).Google Scholar

⁵ Verena Martínez-Alier, Marriage, Class, and Colour; Ramón Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came; Shumway, Jeffrey M. The Case of the Ugly Suitor and Other Histories of Love, Gender, and Nation in Buenos Aires, 1776–1870 (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska, 2005);Google Scholar French, William E. “Te Amo Muncho’: The Love Letters of Pedro and Enriqueta” in Pilcher, Jeffrey M. ed., The Human Tradition in Mexico (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc., 2003);Google Scholar Findlay, Eileen J. “Courtroom Tales of Sex and Honor: Rapto and Rape in Late Nineteenth-Century Puerto Rico,” in Caulfield, Sueann Chambers, Sarah C. and Putnam, Lara eds., Honor, Status, and Law in Modern Latin America (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2005);Google Scholar Kathryn A. Sloan “Runaway Daughters.”

⁶ Rivera, Sonya-Lipsett “The Intersection of Rape and Marriage in Late-Colonial and Early-National Mexico,” Colonial Latin American Historical Review 6:4 (Fall 1997), pp. 559–590.Google Scholar

⁷ Martínez-Alier, Marriage, Class, and Colour, pp. 105–106.Google Scholar

⁸ This essay is based on analysis of 212 rapto cases from Oaxaca de Juárez, Mexico between 1841 and 1908. It is also part of a larger book-length project on seduction and elopement in nineteenth-century Mexico. The majority of my cases derived from working-class families. Rapto and elopement may have been strategies of elite couples too, but their parents probably avoided airing their grievances in court to avert a public scandal.

⁹ Only 147 of 212 cases include the initial document that cites the person who initiated the complaint.

¹⁰ I determined social group by occupation and sometimes by the use of titles such as “Don” and “Doña” in the expedientes.

¹¹ While I argue that lower class parents had a harder time “enclosing” their daughters, I do not mean that these working class individuals did not value modest and respectable behavior among women. In fact, some women in the cases argued that even though they were poor, they did not talk to strange men on the street. For a discussion, see Van Deusen, Nancy E. “Determining the Boundaries of Virtue: The Discourse of Recogimiento among Women in Seventeenth-Century Lima,” Journal of Family History 22:2(1997), pp. 373–389.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹² Mary Odem also argues against viewing the court system as a top-down model of social control. Instead, she conceives of the system as an arena where various actors debated and negotiated various issues related to sexuality, filial obligation, and parental right. See her Delinquent Daughters: Protecting and Policing Adolescent Female Sexuality in the United States, 1885–1920 (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), p. 158.

¹³ Arrom, Silvia M. “Perspectives on the History of the Mexican Family” Latin American Popula-tion History Bulletin 17 (Spring 1990), pp. 4–9;Google Scholar Lipsett-Rivera, Sonya “Introduction: Children in the History of Latin America,” Journal of Family History 23:3 (July 1998), pp. 221–224;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Potthast, Barbara and Carrera, Sandra eds., Entre la familia, la sociedad y el Estado: Niños y jóvenes en América Latina (Siglos XIX-XX) (Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2005);Google Scholar and Hecht, Tobias ed., Minor Omissions: Childhood in Latin American History and Society (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002).Google Scholar

¹⁴ Blum, Ann S. “Conspicuous Benevolence: Liberalism, Public Welfare, and Private Charity in Por-firian Mexico City, 1877–1910,” The Americas 58:4 (July 2001), pp. 7–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

¹⁵ Potthast, and Carrera, , Entre la familia, p. 8.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Potthast, and Carrera, , Entre la familia, p. 10.Google Scholar See also Rousseau, Jean Jacques Emile, or On Education, translated by Bloom, Allan (Penguin, 1991).Google Scholar

¹⁷ Rousseau, , Emile, p. 37.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Heywood, Colin A History of Childhood (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001), p. 24.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Heywood, , Childhood, p. 24.Google Scholar

²⁰ Premo, Bianca “Minor Offenses: Youth, Crime, and Law in Eighteenth-Century Lima” in Hecht, , ed., Minor Omissions, pp. 116–119.Google Scholar

²¹ Article 246, Codigo Civil para Gobierno del Estado Libre de Oajaca (Oajaca: Imprenta del Gobierno, 1828) published in Ortiz-Urquidi, Raúl Oaxaca, cuna de la codificación iberoamericana (México: Editorial Porrúa, 1974), p. 385.Google Scholar

²² Potthast, and Carrera, , Entre la Familia, p. 12.Google Scholar

²³ Hecht, , Minor Omissions, pp. 244–247.Google Scholar

²⁴ Potthast, and Carrera, , Entre La Familia, p. 12;Google Scholar Ramos Escandón, Carmen “Entre la ley y el cariño. Normatividad juridical y disputas familiares sobre la patria potestà” in Potthast, and Carrera, , eds., Entre la familia, pp. 115–141;Google Scholar Blum, Conspicuous Benevolence.

²⁵ For a concise overview see Migden Socolow, Susan The Women of Colonial Latin America (Cambridge University Press, 2000).CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Boyer, Richard “Women, La Mala Vida, and the Politics of Marriage” in Lavrin, Asunción ed., Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1989);Google Scholar Stern, Steve J. The Secret History of Gender: Women, Men, and Power in Late Colonial Mexico (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1995);Google Scholar Lauderdale Graham, Sandra “Honor among Slaves,” in Johnson, Lyman L. and Lipsett-Rivera, Sonya eds., The Faces of Honor: Sex, Shame, and Violence in Colonial Latin America (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998).Google Scholar

²⁶ Arrom, Silvia The Women of Mexico City, 1780–1850 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1985), pp. 78–79.Google Scholar

²⁷ Guy, Donna “Lower-Class Families, Women, and the Law in Nineteenth-Century Argentina,” Journal of Family History 10:3 (1985), pp. 318–31; p. 320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁸ Escandón, Ramos “Entre la ley y el cariño,” p. 116 Google Scholar

²⁹ Arrom, Silvia M. “Changes in Mexican Family Law in the Nineteenth Century: The Civil Codes of 1870 and 1884,” Journal of Family History 10:3 (Fall 1985), pp. 305–317;CrossRefGoogle Scholar pp. 305–6.

³⁰ Ortiz-Urquidi, , Oaxaca, p. 385.Google Scholar

³¹ Ibid, pp. 33–41 Ortiz-Urquidi notes that the text of the code has been lost but provides ample proof from the state’s library and official letters that the code indeed existed.

³² Arrom, , The Women of Mexico City, fn. 110.Google Scholar

³³ Arrom has argued that patria potestas is a misnomer for mothers who gain it after they are wid-owed. They received all the obligations of the patriarch, but none of the privileges. See The Women of Mexico City, p. 69.

³⁴ Arrom, , The Women of Mexico City, pp. 86–87.Google Scholar

³⁵ Arrom, , The Women of Mexico City, pp. 88–89.Google Scholar

³⁶ Arrom, , The Women of Mexico City, p. 87.Google Scholar

³⁷ Código Civil para Gobierno del Estado Libre de Oajaca, articles 80 and 85.

³⁸ Arrom, , The Women of Mexico City, p. 92.Google Scholar

³⁹ Código Civil para Gobierno del Estado Libre de Oajaca, Article 90.

⁴⁰ Código Civil para Gobierno del Estado Libre de Oajaca, Artide 94.

⁴¹ Ortiz-Urquidi, , Oaxaca, p. 5.Google Scholar

⁴² Oaxacans referred to their capital city as the Emerald City because of the green cantera stone of many of its landmark building including the Cathedral on the Alameda. For a concise and interesting urban history of Oaxaca de Juárez during the modernizing Porfiriato see Overmyer-Velázquez, Mark, Visions of the Emerald City: Modernity, Tradition, and the Formation of Porfirian Oaxaca, Mexico (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2006).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴³ Like many streets and places, after the Revolution this market will lose its connection to Porfirio Díaz. Visitors to Oaxaca today will recognize this market as the Juárez market.

⁴⁴ Berry, Charles The Reform in Oaxaca, 1856–76: A Microhistory of the Liberal Revolution (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1981), p. 3.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Chassen-López, Francie From Liberal to Revolutionary Oaxaca: The View from the South, Mexico 1867–1911 (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004), p. 423.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ A traveling reporter for the Diario del Hogar quoted in Chassen-López, , From Liberal to Revolutionary Oaxaca, p. 422.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Overmyer-Velázquez, , Visions of the Emerald City, p. 53.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Chassen-López, , From Liberal to Revolutionary Oaxaca, p. 423.Google Scholar Baseball was the sport of the gente decente in Porfirian Oaxaca, and soccer was associated with unruly and unhygienic workers, see Overmyer-Velázquez, , Visions of the Emerald City, pp. 31–34.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ In fact, Pamela Voekel has argued that modernity had religious origins, see her Alone before God: the Religious Origins of Modernity in Mexico (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002). More specifically to Oaxaca, the 1826 constitutional legislature, half of whose members were priests, decreed the origination of the Institute of Science and Arts whose curriculum included courses in civic law, sciences, mathematics, ethics, political economy as well as ecclesiastical history. The institute graduated Benito Juárez and competed with the seminary for the minds of Oaxaca’s male youth. In fact, priests referred to the school as a “house of heretics … and prostitution.” See Berry, , The Reform in Oaxaca, p. 12.Google Scholar Edward Wright-Rios also makes a case for the piety of Oaxaca’s indigenous population. See his “Piety and Progress: Vision, Shrine, and Society in Oaxaca, 1887–1934” (Doctoral Dissertation, University of California-San Diego, 2004).

⁵⁰ Peter Guardino makes this case for pre-1850 Oaxaca and effectively argues that Oaxacan liberalism before the 1850s and 1860s did not equate with anticlericalism, see The Time of Liberty: Popular Political Culture in Oaxaca, 1750–1850 (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2005), pp. 159–161; See also Chassen-López, , From Liberal to Revolutionary Oaxaca, pp. 423–424;Google Scholar Wright-Rios, , “Piety and Progress,” pp. 130–147.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Chassen-López, , From Liberal to Revolutionary Oaxaca.Google Scholar See also Sánchez Silva, Carlos “Don José Zorrilla Trápaga (1829–1897): El “Tenorio oaxaqueño,” in Trujillo Bolio, Mario and Contreras Valdez, José eds., Formación empresarial, fomento industrial y compañías agrícolas en el México del siglo XIX (Mexico: CIESAS, 2003)Google Scholar and Chassen, Francie R. and Martínez, Héctor G. “El desarrollo económico de Oaxaca a finales del Porfiriato,” in María de los Angeles Frizzi, ed., Lecturas históricas del estado de Oaxaca. Volumen IV, 1877–1930 (Mexico: INAH, 1990),Google Scholar and Overmyer-Velázquez, Visions of the Emerald City.

⁵² Quotation by Governor Porfirio Díaz to the Mexican Congress, September 17, 1882 and quoted in Overmyer-Velázquez, , Visions of the Emerald City, p. 63.Google Scholar

⁵³ Overmyer-Velázquez, , Visions of the Emerald City, p. 40.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Overmyer-Velázquez, , Visions of the Emerald City, p. 41.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ For a discussion of legalized prostitution in Oaxaca, see the author's unpublished dissertation “Runaway Daughters and Dangerous Women: Work, Sexuality, and Gender Relations among the Working Class in Porfirian Oaxaca, Mexico” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Kansas, 2002). Overmyer-Velázquez, Visions of the Emerald City also discusses prostitution within the framework of modernization and discipline during the Porfiriato.

⁵⁶ Overmyer-Velázquez, , Visions of the Emerald City, p. 83.Google Scholar Likewise of the 11,605 textile workers in the entire state, only 570 worked in factories in 1910, op. cit., p. 82. In 1895, the central district had a population of 66,381 while capital city comprised 32,437 residents in 1896, see Chassen-López, , From Liberal to Revolutionary Oaxaca, pp. 241–242.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Seed, Patricia To Love, Honor, and Obey in Colonial Mexico: Conflicts Over Marriage Choice, 1574–1821 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988).Google Scholar Mark Szuchman also found that nineteenth-century Argentine couples conflicted with parents over their chosen love matches. See his “A Challenge to the Patriarchs: Love among the Youth in Nineteenth-Century Argentina,” in Szuchman, Mark ed., The Middle Period in Latin America: Values and Attitudes in the 17th-19th Centuries (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1989), pp. 141–166.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Contra Amando Fuentes y Eduardo Díaz; este por rapto en Tomasa Fuentes y aquel por amagos y amenazas al citado Díaz, Oaxaca 1857, Juzgado Criminal Primero, AHMCO. The judge dismissed the charge of rapto because Tomasa chose to go to Eduardo and she was over 16 years of age. The judge punished Amando for threatening his sister's suitor with a gun and fined him two pesos and sentenced him to two days in jail.

⁵⁹ Guy, Donna J. “The State, the Family, and Marginal Children in Latin America,” in Hecht, , ed., Minor Omissions, pp. 141–142.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Premo, , “Minor Offenses,” pp. 116–117.Google Scholar

⁶¹ H. Congreso del Estado de Oaxaxa, Suplemento Al Numero 37 De “Periodico Oficial” Codigo Civil Declarado Vigente Por El H. Congreso Del Estado De Oaxaca, Article 209.

⁶² Contra Melquiadez Barzalobre por rapto en Juana Silva, Oaxaca 1872, Alcalde Primero Constitucional, AHMCO.

⁶³ Contra Jesús Pimentel por rapto de seducción en Porfiria Ramírez, Oaxaca 1886, Juzgado Criminal Segundo, AHMCO.

⁶⁴ Contra Basilio López por rapto y estupro en Luz García, Oaxaca 1887, Juzgado Criminal Segundo, AHMCO.

⁶⁵ Contra Gaspar Lázaro por rapto en Casimira Montaño, Oaxaca 1889, Juzgado Criminal Segundo, AHMCO.

⁶⁶ Contra Pioquinto Aguilar por rapto en Feliciana Sánchez, Oaxaca 1887, Primero Juzgado Criminal, AHMCO.

⁶⁷ Contra Aurelio García por robo sin violencia, rapto y estupro en perjuicio de Rosa Martínez, Oaxaca 1880, Juzgado Primero Criminal, AHMCO.

⁶⁸ Contra Eduardo Ramírez por rapto en Francisca Delgado, Oaxaca 1887, Juzgado Criminal Segundo, AHMCO and Averiguación del rapto de que se queja Perfecta Medina perpetrado en su hija Anita Nicolas, Oaxaca 1870, Juzgado de Letras, AHMCO.

⁶⁹ Contra José Inés Caballero y accomplices por rapto, Oaxaca 1873, Juzgado Tercero de la Capital, AHMCO.

⁷⁰ Contra José García por rapto y estupro en Narcisa Rafaela Cortés, Oaxaca 1886, Juzgado Primero Criminal, AHMCO.

⁷¹ Martínez-Alier, , Marriage, Class, and Colour, p. 107.Google Scholar

⁷² In her introduction, Asunción Lavrin does not cite maltreatment as one of the reasons that minors eloped. See Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America, p. 65–66. Patricia Seed and Ramón Gutiérrez also do not cite maltreatment as a justification for eloping. See Seed, , To Love, Honor, and Obey,Google Scholar and Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came.

⁷³ French, William E. “Prostitutes and Guardian Angels: Women, Work, and the Family in Porfirian Mexico,” Hispanic American Historical Review 72 (November 1992), pp. 529–555.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷⁴ Seed, To Love, Honor, and Obey. Shumway also found that romantic and paternal love also informed disenso cases from Buenos Aires. Like the cases from Oaxaca porteño parents complained that their children were too immature to responsibly choose life mates. See Shumway, , Ugly Suitor, pp. 73–79.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Boyer, Richard “ Honor among Plebeians ” in Johnson, and Lipsett-Rivera, , eds., The Faces of Honor;Google Scholar Johnson, , “”Dangerous Words, Provocative Gestures, and Violent Acts”” in The Faces of Honor.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Stone, Lawrence The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500–1800 (New York: Harper and Row, 1977).Google Scholar

⁷⁷ For a discussion of a rapto case and its love letters see French, “’Te Amo Muncho.’ French beautifully reconstructs the tragic story of love turned violent as these lovers struggled over notions of honor, deceit, and trust.

⁷⁸ Contra Pedro Clérin por rapto en Eulalia Vásquez, Oaxaca 1872, Juzgado de Letras, AHMCO.

⁷⁹ Contra el gendarme Juan López por rapto en Arcadia Benítes, Oaxaca 1887, Juzgado Primero Criminal, AHMCO.

⁸⁰ Contra Jose Martínez por rapto y estupro en la jóven Soledad Blanco, Oaxaca 1887, Juzgado Criminal Segundo, AHMCO. Remarkably, the case file contains their marriage certificate.

⁸¹ Love letter contained in the case Contra Arcadio Ortega acusado de fuerza en Anastacia Delgado, Oaxaca 1875, Juzgado Tercero de la Capital, AHMCO.

⁸² A vagrant could mean a jobless and/or homeless person or just as a term to denigrate someone’s reputation. The 1871 Penal Code dealt with “Vagrancy and Begging” under “Crimes against public order” and defined vagrants as “lacking property and rents, do not exercise an honest industry, art, or trade for a living, without having a legitimate impediment.” See Código Penal para el Distrito Federal y Territorio de la Baja-California sobre delitos del fuero común y para toda la República Mexicana sobre delitos contra la Federación. Also see Piccato, Pablo City of Suspects: Crime in Mexico City, 1900–1931 (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2001), p. 171,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and his discussion of rateros as vagrants before the law.

⁸³ Contra Manuel Vivas por rapto en la jóven, Josefa Calvo, Oaxaca 1899, Juzgado Primero de lo Capital, AHMCO.

⁸⁴ Contra Manuel Mimiaga por rapto en Guadalupe Ogarrio, Oaxaca 1873, Juzgado lo Capital, AHMCO.

⁸⁵ Contra Victoriano Chávez acusado del rapto de María Asunción Quevedo, Oaxaca 1869, Juzgado Segundo de la Capital, AHMCO.

⁸⁶ Contra Aniceto Ramos por el delito de rapto hecho en Angela Gabriela Ramírez, Oaxaca 1852, Juzgado Criminal Segundo, AHMCO.

⁸⁷ Contra Isaac Robles por rapto en Encarnación Arango, Oaxaca 1906, Juzgado Segundo Penal, AHMCO.

⁸⁸ While it is irrefutable that colonial era plebes believed that they possessed honor, some scholars have found that they did not use the word “honor” in their testimonies especially if they resided in large cities comprised of the most elite members of society. See in particular, Johnson, “Dangerous Words.” Lipsett-Rivera found that the use of the word “honor” was more common in colonial towns and villages far from the seats of power. See her “A Slap in the Face of Honor.” For a complex study of the private and public aspects of honor, see Twinam, Ann Public Lives, Public Secrets: Gender, Honor, Sexuality, and Illegitimacy in Colonial Spanish America (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999).Google Scholar Cases where participants actually utilized the words “honor” or “honra” or their derivatives: Contra Amando Fuentes y Eduardo Díaz; este por rapto en Tomasa Fuentes y aquel por amigos y amenazas al citado Díaz, Oaxaca 1857, Juzgado Criminal Primero, AHMCO; Contra Victorio Rivera y hijo por rapto y seduction de la hija de Florencia Garcia, Oaxaca 1881, Juzgado Criminal Primero, AHMCO; Contra Justo Martínez por rapto en Concepción Camacho, Oaxaca 1881, Juzgado Criminal Primero, AHMCO; Contra Mariano Cruz por rapto de seducción en Petrona Vásquez, Oaxaca 1886, Juzgado Primero de lo Criminal, AHMCO; Contra Jose Ríos Nataret por rapto y estupro en la menor Dolores Garcés, Oaxaca 1887, Primero Juzgado Criminal, AHMCO; Contra Francisco Cruz acusado por Néstora Cruz de los delitos de injurías, difamación, calumnia, atentado contra el pudor, estupro no violento y separación de su virginidad, Oaxaca 1893, Primero Juzgado Criminal, AHMCO; Contra Jose Martínez por rapto y estupro en la jóven Soledad Blanco, Oaxaca 1887, Juzgado Criminal Segundo, AHMCO; Contra Crescencio Zaavedra por rapto y estupro en María Paula Robles, Oaxaca 1870, Juzgado de Letras, AHMCO; Contra Manuel Mimiagoa por rapto en Guadalupe Ogarrio, Oaxaca 1873, Juzgado Primero de la Capital, AHMCO; Contra Arcadio Ortega acusado de fuerza en Anastacia Delgado, Oaxaca 1875, Juzgado Tercero de la Capital, AHMCO; Contra Agustín Robles por rapto de que lo acusa Eduardo Fernández del Campo, Oaxaca 1908, Juzgado Segundo Penal, AHMCO; Contra El Preceptor Andrés Flores por haberse raptado a la menor e hija de Id Señora Francisca Reyes, San Sebastina Tutla 1890, Juzgado Criminal Segundo, AHMCO.

⁸⁹ Contra Jesús García por rapto en Juana Alcazar, Oaxaca 1888, Primero Juzgado Criminal, AHMCO.

⁹⁰ Contra El Preceptor Andres Flores por haberse raptado a la menor e hija de la Señora Francisca Reyes, San Sebastina Tutla 1890, Juzgado Criminal Segundo, AHMCO.

⁹¹ Contra Pedro Escobar por estupro en Andrea Pacheco, Oaxaca 1876, Juzgado Primero Criminal, AHMCO.

⁹² Criminal contra Reinaldo Ramírez por rapto y violación en Rosa Martínez Gracida, Oaxaca 1889, Juzgado Primero Criminal, AHMCO.

⁹³ Contra Cipriano López acusado del rapto y seducción, Oaxaca 1875, Juzgado Tercero de la Capital, AHMCO.

⁹⁴ Contra Arcadio Ortega acusado de fuerza en Anastacia Delgado, Oaxaca 1875, Juzgado Tercero de la Capital, AHMCO.

⁹⁵ Contra Mateo Pérez acusado de rapto y estupro en Herlinda Mendoza, Oaxaca 1886, Juzgado Criminal Segundo, AHMCO.

⁹⁶ Contra Crisóforo Ramírez y Genoveva García por rapto y robo, Oaxaca 1908, Juzgado Segundo Penal, AHMCO.

⁹⁷ Caulfield, Sueann In Defense of Honor: Sexual Morality, Modernity, and Nation in Early-Twentieth-Century Brazil (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2000).Google Scholar For a discussion of working class honor and its alternate model for the working class see Sloan, “Runaway Daughters.”

⁹⁸ Estado de Oaxaca, , Código Penal Para El Estado De Oaxaca (Oaxaca, Mexico: Imprenta del Estado, 1888),Google Scholar Article 807.

⁹⁹ Contra Julian y Dolores Serna el primero por contuciones a la segunda y contra esta por faltas de aquel el cual es su padre, Oaxaca 1875, Juzgado Segundo del Partido, AHMCO.

¹⁰⁰ Arrom, Silvia M. “Changes in Mexican Family Law,” pp. 305–317.Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ Contra Nicolás Flores por rapto y estupro en la jóven Patrocinia Jiménez, Oaxaca 1885, Juzgado Primero Criminal, AHMCO.

¹⁰² Remember that the court found that Narcisa had lost her virginity earlier, but still sentenced her raptor to prison. See Contra Jose García por rapto y estupro en Narcisa Rafaela Cortés, Oaxaca 1886, Juzgado Primero Criminal, AHMCO.

¹⁰³ Contra Gregorio Cruz por estupro que cometio en perjuicio de la menor Juana Guzman, Oaxaca 1853, Juzgado de Primera Instancia, AHMCO; Contra Manuel de la Cruz por estupro cometido en perjuicio de Policarpia Marea ambos de esta ciudad, Oaxaca 1855, Juzgado Criminal Segundo, AHMCO; Contra Nicolás Flores por rapto y estupro en la jóven Patrocinia Jiménez, Oaxaca 1885, Juzgado Primero Criminal, AHMCO; Contra Jose García por rapto y estupro en Narcisa Rafaela Cortés, Oaxaca 1886, Juzgado Primero Criminal, AHMCO; Contra Jose Rios Nataret por rapto y estupro en la menor Dolores Garces, Oaxaca 1887, Primero Juzgado Criminal, AHMCO; Contra Inocente Zarate por rapto en Carmen Falledos, Oaxaca 1888, Primero Juzgado Criminal, AHMCO; Contra Joaquin Chavez por rapto y fuerza, Tlalixtac 1869, Juzgado de Letras, AHMCO. Of those seven cases, four of the plaintiffs were fathers; one plaintiff was a husband; one ama initiated the other case, and only one mother successfully had her daughter’s suitor fined imprisoned. While statistically these numbers are not significant, it is interesting that only one mother had the court side with her against the male suitor.

¹⁰⁴ Hunefeldt, Christine Liberalism in the Bedroom: Quarreling Spouses in Nineteenth-Century Lima (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), pp. 196–197.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ Martínez-Alier, , Marriage, Class, and Colour, p. 135.Google Scholar