The vision of the patriarchal “Big House” as a model of the Brazilian family is fading in light of new research. In Iguape, a rural parish in the state of Bahia, one-third of the households were female-headed in a population in which the non-slave component comprised 33.8 percent. The number of female-headed households in this sugar zone increases as one descends both the occupational and the racial hierarchies. The living arrangements of the free/freed population, especially the young and the elderly, show that 43.5 percent lived under the roof of a female-headed household. These findings are illuminating in the context of other studies that propose that female-headed households and the patterns of gender segregation are common to Brazil, as well as, perhaps, to all of Latin America.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Arquivo Público do Estado da Bahia (APEB). 1835. “Relação do número do fogos e moradores do distrito da Fregrezia Sant'Iago Maior do Iguape da comarca da Vila da Cachoeira, Provincia da Bahia.” Colônia, Maço 6175.
2.
ArromSílvia Marina.1985. Women of Mexico City. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
3.
AufderheidePatricia. 1981. “Upright Citizens in Criminal Records: Investigation in Cachoeira and Geremoabo, Brazil, 1780–1836.” The Americas38(2): 173–184.
4.
CandidoAntônio. 1951. “The Brazilian Family.” Pp. 291–312 in Brazil: Portrait of Half a Continent, edited by Lynn SmithT.MarchantAlexander. New York: Dryden Press.
5.
ClarkColin. 1951. The Condition of Economic Progress. 2nd ed.London: Macmillan & Co.
6.
EisenbergPeter L.1974. The Sugar Industry of Pernambuco: Modernization Without Change, 1840–1910. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
7.
EwbankThomas. 1856. Life in Brazil. New York: Harper and Brothers.
8.
FreyreGilberto. 1946. The Masters and the Slaves. Translated by PutmanSamuel. New York: Knopf.
9.
FurtadoCelso. 1963. The Economic Growth of Brazil. Berkeley: University of California.
10.
HalpernJ. M.1972. “Town and Countryside in Serbia in the Nineteenth Century.” Pp. 401–427 in Household and Family in Past Time, edited by LaslettPeterWallRichard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
11.
JohnsonAnn Hagerman.1978. “The Impact of Market Agriculture on Family Structure and Household in Nineteenth Century Chile.” Hispanic American Historical Review58:625–648.
12.
KuznesofElizabeth Anne.1980a. “Household Composition and Headship as Related to Changes in Mode of Production: São Paulo 1765 to 1836.” Comparative Studies in Society and History22: 78–108.
13.
KuznesofElizabeth Anne.1980b. “The Role of the Female-Headed Household in Brazilian Modernization” Journal of Social History13(4):589–613.
14.
KuznesofElizabeth Anne.1985. Household Economy and Urban Development: São Paulo 1765 to 1836. Boulder: Westview Press.
15.
KuznesofElizabeth Anne.1988. “Household, Family and Community Studies 1976–1986: A Bibliographical Essay.” Latin American Population History Newsletter14:9–23.
16.
KuznesofElizabeth AnneOppenheimerRobert. 1985. “The Family in Nineteenth-Century Latin America: An Historiographical Introduction.” Journal of Family History10(3):215–234.
17.
LisantiLuisLuiza MarcílioMaria. 1969. “Estrutura demográfica, social e económica da Vila de Lajes, 1798–1808.” Estudos Históricos8:9–52.
18.
MarcílioMaria Luíza.1974a. A cidade de São Paulo. São Paulo: Pionera.
19.
MarcílioMaria Luíza.1974b. “Crescimiento demográfico e evolução agrária Paulista, 1700–1836.” São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo, Tese de livre-docencia.
20.
Martínez-AlierVerena. 1974. Marriage, Class and Colour in Nineteenth-Century Cuba. Oxford: Cambridge University Press.
21.
Mesquita SamaraEni de.1989. As mulheres, o poder e a família: São Paulo, Século XIX. São Paulo: Editora Marco Zero.
22.
NozoeNelson Hideikidel Nero da CostaIraci. 1985. “Classificação das ocupações, ramos e setores econômicos do periodo escravista brasileiro.” São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo, Seminário Permanente de Estudo da Família e da População no Passado Brasileiro.
23.
MattosoQueirósdeKátia M.. 1978. Bahia: a cidade do Salvador e seu mercado no século XIX. São Paulo: HUCITEC.
24.
RamosDonald. 1975. “Marriage and the Family in Colonial Vila Rica.” Hispanic American Historical Review55(2):200–225.
25.
RamosDonald. 1979. “Vila Rica: A Profile of a Colonial Brazilian Urban Center.” The Americas35(4):495–526.
26.
ReisJoão José.1982. “Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The African Muslim Uprising in Bahia, 1835.” Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota.
27.
ReisJoão José.1986. Rebelião escrava no Brasil: A história do levante dos mãles (1835). 2nd ed.São Paulo: Brasiliense.
28.
RugglesS.1987. Prolonged Connections: The Rise of the Extended Family in Nineteenth-Century England and America. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
29.
SchwartzStuart B.1985. Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
30.
DiasSilvaOdilia Leite daMaria. 1984. Quotidiano e poder em São Paulo no século XIX. São Paulo: Brasiliense.
