Family in Religious Contexts: Notions and Practices in Female and Male Convents in Colonial Mexico

Women and men who took the religious vows forfeited their natural families, and were forced to construct a different concept of family in their new social environment. Theirs was an alternative way of thinking familial relationships and one that bears examination since there were thousands of individuals practicing it throughout the colonial period. Once men and women took the vows and left their families forever, did they bring some notions of familial relationships to the convents? How did the church, the institution that defined and controlled secular marriage and family, deal with the nature of relationships within its conventual communities?  Strong gender differences made women's convents more likely to resemble a secular family than male convents. Women were cloistered and prone to establish affective family ties with other women within and without the cloisters given their strongly gendered education. As brides of Christ how did they relate to other women so defined but still living with other "sister brides" and lay women—some related but mostly not blood relatives?   Men viewed their own convents as "families" in relation to other convents. Not being cloistered they did not build the same affective ties among themselves that women seemed to have established in their communities. The issue of virtual motherhood in women's convents stands to be examined and compared to the concept of "fatherhood" in male convents. Men were not "betrothed" to Christ in the same way as women were, and their sense of family within the convent was affected by the fact that they were seen as virtual "fathers" by people outside it. These and similar questions should help to expand our understanding of the term "family" as a historical challenge that bears revisiting.  This paper addresses the AHA’s theme:  the relationship of the sacred with secular society.