The Mexican Housewife

We just came back from a trip to visit my husband’s family in Mexico. While there, I had the chance to see — yet again — some examples of old-time Mexican housewifery. I stand impressed.

Now, I should start out by saying that I am a full-out gringa (a white girl from the U.S.) and have not had as much time as some others have had to observe the uniqueness of traditional Mexican home life. So, please forgive me if I make any ungrounded assumptions. However, having been with my husband for nearly 16 years now, I feel that I do have at least a small portion of accurate knowledge regarding this topic. Also, because I speak (mostly) fluent conversational Spanish, I’m able to talk to Latinos directly about their upbringing and beliefs.

Mexican Home Life

Though it may not be as true now as it was fifty years ago, Latino women are generally still keepers of the home, while their husbands provide the living.

What does a typical day for a Mexican housewife look like? It starts with getting up early to make breakfast for the family. This will probably include flour tortillas, refried pinto beans, and eggs, accompanied by a fresh pot of coffee. Women from previous generations were more likely to make homemade tortillas, while younger women will probably just buy them. Thankfully, in Mexico there are tortilla factories that produce very homemade-tasting tortillas for those who don’t want to do it themselves (a somewhat labor-intensive task that takes a lot of practice to perfect).

Next, the children finish getting ready for school. Though there are private parent-paid schools, most children are sent to the government-funded public schools. Sadly, it is my observation that these public schools teach from an evolutionary viewpoint (as in the U.S.), leading to a distancing between the spheres of “religion” and “real” life in many people’s minds. Though Mexico is predominantly a Catholic country, many Mexicans regard church more as a part of their history which is related to their social traditions than as a personal relationship with God Almighty. So, children are unlikely to hear about God in their classes at school and may not always hear much about Him at home, either. Despite the many rosaries we see hanging from car rear-view mirrors, Mexican culture is largely secular, as far as I can tell.

Alright, back to the Mexican wife.

Once the children are off to school, she then proceeds to do her housework, first washing the dishes, then sweeping and mopping the floors and patios (they sometimes sweep the dirt in their yards, too, which gives it a tidy, clean look). Thankfully, most people have tile or at least concrete floors, but some of the poorer folk get by with dirt floors. Mexicans generally enjoy having gardens, which the housewife will water after her kitchen chores are completed. Earlier housewives would wash clothes by hand (and some women — young and old — still do), but many families now have washing machines, though they may choose to save energy by hanging the clothes on the line to dry instead of putting them in the dryer.

The housewife prepares the mid-day meal for her family to be ready to eat by 2:00 in the afternoon. Husbands and children will often come from work and school to eat lunch at home. This is more like what we typically expect at supper, not the sandwiches we often eat at lunch. In fact, Mexicans don’t even call it “lunch” (lonche is the slang term borrowed from English): it’s the comida, the meal, or in other words, “dinner.” Their supper, the cena, is eaten around 8:00 in the evening (though some families eat it earlier and then have a light snack later on). Even the working wife is expected to take charge of the meals, and most women take pride in their cooking abilities. Women who don’t cook for their families are seen as flojas, lazy women.

If any of the children get sick, the Mexican housewife will often provide a natural home remedy right away. She likes to feel competent not only as a mother but as the “doctor” of her family, using her knowledge of home-based cures passed down from generation to generation as a guide. Ironically, though many Mexicans pride themselves on knowing how to cure sicknesses naturally, they will still resort to unnatural treatments such as synthetic lab-made drugs and vaccines. Then, they take pride in knowing just the right drug to use.

A Matriarchal Society?

In my experience, Mexican culture is not matriarchal. The man is the head of the house and his wife and children are expected to respect his leadership. He works, he comes home, and his wife makes him coffee and offers him food; she cooks all his meals and cleans his clothes. She bathes and dresses the children. She does the housework. This was especially true for the older generation, though it is still mostly true even for the younger generation. Unfortunately, however, just as in the U.S., Feminism has taken a hold in this Latin country, and many young women feel the pressure to get a degree and have a career, which of course involves using birth control to limit their family size. The large Mexican family is a thing of the past, it would appear. Because of this push toward Feminism, many women in Mexico are losing their sense of femininity along with their traditional Latino heritage. So, Latino society today is somewhat Feminist, but I don’t think it has ever been strictly “matriarchal,” despite what the movies might portray.

I think that one reason people over here tend to see Mexicans as having a matriarchal society is that the children keep their mother’s last name as well as their father’s. However, this is what in reality happens: the mother passes on to her children her father’s last name, not her mother’s. Thus, the children inherit both grandfathers’ last names, but not their grandmothers’. Here’s a quick example of this:

Juan Moreno Chavez marries Maria Garcia Lopez

They have a son, whom they name Juanito Moreno Garcia (to keep it simple).

He has two last names: Moreno, passed down from his father (his first last name), and Garcia, passed down from his mother (his second last name). Notice that the second last name doesn’t get passed down from either of his parents. So, his grandmother’s last name of Lopez on his mother’s side and his grandmother’s last name of Chavez on his father’s side do not get passed down to him, but he retains both grandfathers’ last names.

Therefore, this is not really a good example of matriarchism; it’s just a way to know who your parents are.

It is true, however, that the older women in the family are respected. In fact, all older people are respected, women and men alike, which is something I greatly admire about Mexican life. They often call elder men, Don (the man in charge) or Señor (Mr. or Sir) and older women, Doña (the woman in charge of her house) or Señora (Mrs. or Ma’am). They will also address older people by using the formal form of you, usted, instead of the informal form, tú, which is reserved for peers. I don’t think the wife has more say than her husband, though. Frankly, Mexican society can often be extremely male-dominant, sometimes to the point of treating the woman as if she were less than the man, which is referred to in Spanish as machismo.

Conclusion

My mother-in-law and sisters-in-law are all wonderful examples of Mexican housewifery: they cook three square meals a day, keep their homes clean and tidy, look carefully after their children (and grandchildren), and cater to their husbands. Though Mexican culture seems to be gradually slipping toward a secular, Feminist society, many of the former, traditional values are still able to be observed in family life. I’m so thankful for that and hope to continue the tradition within my own home.

~Jessica