ABSTRACT In just a few decades, historiography on gender and law in Latin America has grown from foundational works establishing the dimensions of women's legal status in colonial compilations and later national codes to scholarship that considers the distinctions among different social groups of women and traces women as active agents in pluralistic legal regimes. Research into law as practice based on archival sources has increased our understanding of gender and legal culture. Collectively, these works pose a complex picture. During the colonial period, women were often successful in defending their economic interests in court, but liberal reforms in the 19th century often resulted in greater restriction rather than progress for many women. For charges related to sexual assault, domestic violence, and abortion/infanticide, distinctions drawn by prosecutors and magistrates between private (honor) and public (assault) crimes left women vulnerable. Historians have debated whether women's considerable agency in some legal arenas calls for a reassessment of patriarchy as the dominant legal framework shaping social relations between women and men as well as within the family. This article surveys methodologies and theoretical frameworks in the historiography on gender and law in Latin America to argue that an intersectional approach alongside a reconsideration of some rights as legal protections illuminates patterns of women exercising legal agency in some arenas even as they were subordinated to men within others.
Sarah C. Chambers (2026) studied this question.