Women and Loving Magic in Zacatecas during the 18th Century

Abstract

Cultural considerations about men and women depend greatly on the religious and social control exercised in every age. In the Colonial stage of the New Spain the discourse of the Church was decisive in the way in which people built their relationships according to socioeconomic level, family conventions, the social and cultural norms reli­gious traditions, geographical environment; so the ideal love was subject to social norms, religion and magic. Magic was the unorthodox way conducive to relationship issues and concerns. It was a tool that is intended to get at least a portion of the power to manipulate the craving of sex, get married, hold extramarital affairs, or was simply the comfort of many women that had suffered the manifestations of male power through physical abuse.