CHAPTER 12 WOMEN AND GENDER IN MESOAMERICA 447suggesting that, for the Spaniards the phallus was the extension of the sword. In-
digenous people defended themselves against sexual abuse as best they could, by re-
jecting sex (for which women risked death), aborting fetuses of forced unions, or
committing suicide.
Incidents of sexual violence continued into Colonial times combined with the
ruthless exploitation of women’s labor. Women’s work responsibilities increased
tremendously, especially for rural and nonelite women, as a result of the demographic
crisis and Spanish demands for tribute and production of cloth (Kellogg 2005). Many
women became widows and single mothers as a consequence of the disproportion-
ate participation of men in the wars of conquest. Women had to work intensively to
support their own households, often without the assistance of husbands and of other
extended family members, while at the same time trying to earn money and to weave
large quantities of cloth to satisfy increasing Spanish demands. Officials, priests, and
wealthy Spanish families exploited women also through domestic work, which some-
times involved sexual coercion as well as other abusive practices such as kidnapping;
forcing women to work without pay in exchange for clothing, room, and board; keep-
ing women enclosed beyond the requirements of their domestic responsibilities; and
obliging them to weave so that they could sell their cloth, a desirable commodity in
colonial times.
Encomenderos(for a discussion of them, see Chapters 4 and 5) went to the ex-
treme of renting women for domestic and sexual services to sailors who traveled to
distant places for months at a time. The more attractive the women, the more money
the encomenderocould earn. In early colonial times, women from the indigenous elite
were exempted by Spanish law from any of the requirements imposed on the rest of
the population. A century later, having lost many of their properties and privileges,
these women, too, were forced to pay tribute and to produce valuable items.
Transformations in the Colonial Aztec Gender System
By the seventeenth century, Hispanic cultural definitions and gender practices had
drastically transformed women’s status in Central Mexico. Aztec women lost power
in the religious and political realms because many of the native institutions in which
women had held posts of authority were destroyed. In addition, the imposition of
Spanish ideals of women’s purity and honor restricted women’s freedom. Although
women retained the right to litigate in court and to own and administer property, the
Spanish patriarchal system encroached on every aspect of their lives, increasingly
limiting their autonomy.
During the first fifty years after the conquest, native women had a strong pres-
ence in the courts defending property (see Box 12.1). By the seventeenth century,
however, they were much less likely to initiate property litigation, and wills made by
women were no longer as frequently used to bolster ownership claims as they had
been in the sixteenth century. Likewise, the rates at which women bought, sold, or
inherited property decreased dramatically, indicating a deterioration of women’s sta-
tus. How did this deterioration come about? The patriarchal society instituted by the
Spaniards gave fathers and husbands unlimited authority over their wives and