ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the linkage between theoretical norms of feminine sexuality and honor. Women who engaged in premarital or extramarital sexual relations not only lost personal reputation and honor, but could beget additional family members whose illegitimacy excluded them from family honor. In societies where premarital chastity is the ideal, one simple expedient to mitigate consequences of violating it is to hide the resulting pregnancy so that it apparently never happened. In colonial Spanish America, such “private pregnancies” took a subtle form, for a single woman might be nine months pregnant (privately) but still maintain her public reputation as a virgin and woman of honor. Although private pregnancies could save honor, they entailed extraordinary precautions on the part of the woman, her lover, and their families. At least 44, or 23.5 percent, of legitimation petitions reflect an alternative strategy of “public pregnancy” where elite women carried, bore, and raised their illegitimate children under the full scrutiny of their social peers.
