Latin Marriage

WHEN a North American man takes a South American spouse, the result, in 95 cases out of 100, is highly successful. But when a U.S. woman marries a Latin male, in almost 75 out of 100 instances the union ends on the rocks. I got my first inkling of the reason at a farewell party in Lima one fall afternoon.

The guest of honor was an extremely attractive American girl connected with our Embassy. During her two-year assignment she’d been rushed like the season’s top debutante. Yet though she loved Peru and would have liked nothing better than to marry and stay, she hadn’t had a proposal and was going home. Curious, I pulled aside a handsome young Peruvian who had been particularly attentive. Just a few days before, he had announced his engagement to a Colombian girl at the same time his sister had revealed hers to a Panagra pilot. He laughed when I asked why.

“We Latinos are attracted by American girls, especially your blondes. They are wonderful for dates, fun, amusing times. But marry them? Never. They don’t have the right attitude for the home.”

“But,” I argued, “what about your sister’s engagement to a Norteamericano? ”

There was a slow, enigmatic smile. “You Yanquis always jump to conclusions. Wait until you have lived here awhile. Then you’ll understand.”

Under the impact of European and U.S. influence marital mores are changing in Latin America. But get away from the comparative handful with modern ideas in the cosmopolitan capitals of Buenos Aires, Rio, Santiago, and Mexico City and you discover that while cellophane, colored bathrooms, el bubble gum, and other twentieth-century innovations are standard Latin equipment, marriage is still conducted along eighteenth-century lines.

The Latin señorita who marries the foreigner escapes most of the taboos regardless of residence. The American woman who says “I do" to the Latin is expected to conform, even if settled in the States. And she soon discovers that Mamá, who has charge of the Latin bride and her activities until the ceremony, when his mother usually assumes the same role, starts the preparation of the señorita in infancy.

The routine rarely gets far from home, church, and plaza. The girls are taught that orders must be accepted even from baby brother because he is a man and, like all other males in the house, entitled to first consideration. Except among progressive families of means in the larger cities, the chaperone, keeps watch all through girlhood. There’s still little in the way of sports for the average; almost no after-dark activity and no time for friendship with boys, per se.

A young man is either a prospective bridegroom or not wanted around. And education at the parish or public school has the same wedding bells in sight. In most places schooling is confined to the artes femeninas: sewing, cooking, running a household and servants. Girls from middle or upper-income families will also receive instruction in music, history, literature, and languages in conversation-making quantity. Most important, however, is getting and holding the man.

The Latin señorita with ideas about a career or making a mark in the world is expected to forget them. There are exceptions — Latin women have made names in medicine and law, architecture, writing and the sciences, especially in Argentine, Uruguayan, Chilean, Colombian, and Costa Rican cities, which are the most liberal. But although marriage and the convent are no longer the sole alternatives, most girls, maturing earlier than here, are engaged at sixteen and married at nineteen.

A soltera of twenty-one is a rarity. If she’s still single at twenty-five, she rates as an old maid, probably because she turned down her parents’ choice. Today not many señoritas are ordered to marry the parental selection, but those who defy the family by eloping or otherwise circumventing the pick are few indeed. Generally a compromise is made between love and desirability, with the dowry a deciding factor.

The elaborate church wedding — civil marriages are unfashionable - and the honeymoon are generally idyllic. But once over, family control of Latin marriage begins in earnest. Many couples spend their first years with his family, even though they have sufficient means for their own casita. The U.S. bride who may not get along well with certain in-laws will usually put up a good front and cut contacts to a minimum. In Latin America the first obligation is to his clan, even above her own.

Often they vacation together, buy jointly, and take no important step without a reunión de la familia. His mother is the final authority on the bride’s habits, clothes, make-up, friends, and opinions. Only in those major cities where the international crowd has in recent years introduced the innovation do most wives smoke in public. Wines with meals are accepted by Latin husbands, but anything stronger is usually forbidden.

I’ve known of Latin husbands who have called for the list of their waves’ intimates, decided whom they could see and whom they must not, and expected arrangements to be made accordingly. The responsibility for running the house, staging the formal entertaining, and managing the children is hers — with El Señor checking and countermanding where he feels necessary. For not until the wife herself reaches upper middle age and heads a family of her own does she obtain the full rewards of dignity, responsibility, and standing which are regarded as the compensating factors in Latin marriage.

What most astonishes U.S. women who marry Latins is the frequency with which the men carry on an extracurricular affair, as normal practice. “It’s the women who marry. We remain single,” is the way many a Latin husband puts it. Latin wives are expected to keep their knowledge of such things to themselves. The Latin feels that first he’s a man, secondly a husband. If he’s not able to have a mistress he believes he’s failed both financially and in virility. Having an amor could ruin an American official. Not having one might make a Latin político suspect.

Wives, on the other hand, would never dream of applying the same standard. Latin men are among the most jealous in the world. One reason many gave me for not wanting U.S. mates is the fact that before marriage they “have had boy friends and heard words of love from other men.” The American husband, one said, likes to think he’s won his wife against a field of competitors. The Latin demands that his never have thought of anyone but him. “We may be fooling ourselves,” a Cuban admitted, “but we like it that way.”

The contrast between the attitude of males north and south of the border is even more noticeable in second marriages. In the United States, widows and divorcee’s are often regarded as especially desirable. In Latin America, it’s almost impossible for a widow to remarry. And except in Mexico, Costa Rica, Uruguay, and a few other countries, divorce is practically unobtainable on any grounds.

It’s the unwillingness of U.S. girls to conform that causes so many matches between them and Latin men to end in failure. And it is the willingness of most American men who marry Latin girls to let them continue in their traditional ways which results in the general success of such marriages.

Latin men educated in the States were frankest in discussing the difference. “ Lack of obedience and respect” was their chief complaint. To most, the very independence of American women was objectionable. “They want to have their own friends, bank account, and interests in addition to homemaking,”one Brazilian explained. “They want their own cars — and even to use them after dark. We couldn’t think of that.”

I also gathered other complaints about American wives. They insist upon “drinking and smoking like men.” They have “too frank and easy an approach.” They have “too much schooling and refuse to take the husband’s word sufficiently.”And they “don’t know how to dress properly.”

It was hard not to smile when Latin wives, expressing their reasons for wanting Yanqui husbands, cited many of the same things in reverse. Heading the list for most was the one woman habit. Finding an American who kept a casa chica was an exception. Another point mentioned repeatedly was the fact that “most American husbands have few secrets from their wives and make them a part of their lives and interests.”

Many Latin wives also emphasized the way most U.S. couples plan things together. Others said Latin husbands are often more generous but “they bestow as a gift - a sign of their goodness— a lot today, nothing tomorrow.” American husbands are far more steady, many remarked. “They may lack the courtly gesture or the ability to whisper enough well-turned compliments — but they make it up in a hundred other ways.”

Mostly those ways were the freedom American husbands give their wives. And, I found, these Latin women with whom I talked thought more of the little things than of the big: freedom to have an opinion and express it; to discuss family affairs without fear of being arbitrarily overruled; to “feel themselves equals, not chattels.”

No wonder every unattached Yanqui heading into the Good Neighbor belt finds himself cocktailed, partied, and dined like the year’s most eligible bachelor. He may rate as an unromantic suitor, muscle-short glamour boy, or so-so husband at home but to the Latin señorita he’s the hemisphere’s best catch.