Week 4

“Now when I am no longer needed my love for Pedro is a scandal, but when I found found water in the desert, treated the ill, buried the dead, and saved Santiago from the Indians, then I was a saint…. You do not have the least idea how I feel. It is devilishly ironic that only the concubine is guilty, she being a free woman and he the married adulterer” (Allende, 251).

This  passage describes the double standard for men and women who participate in physical intimacy outside the bonds of marriage. The protagonist in Inés of My Soul, Inés, loves Pedro de Valdivia. She is a widow, and he is married to a woman in Spain, but that is overlooked and they live together and build up and fortify the city of Santiago. However, the Priest delivers a message to Inés which states that she must either marry or leave her beloved city. Although Pedro is the married man, the one truly guilty of being unfaithful, he does not face the same punishment as Inés. In fact, he faces no punishment at all other than the fact that Inés can no longer live with him.

            The irony of a culture that supports this inequality is described by Sor Juana in her poem “Hombres Necios”:

Whose the guilt, where to begin,
    Though both yield to passion's sway,
    She who weakly sins for pay,
He who, strong, yet pays for Sin?

           

Sor Juana describes the woman in this paradox as ‘weakly sinning for pay’ and the man as “strong, yet pars for Sin.” Similarly Inés states, “It is devilishly ironic that only the concubine is guilty, she being a free woman and he the married adulterer” (Allende, 251).

The double standard that existed in these two Latin American cultures is horrifying. Yet, it is even more terrible that they still exist all over today. Even in modern American culture this irony, although not quite as extreme, perpetuates. Young men often look up to teenage boys who participate in physical intimacy with several girls. They are considered popular.  However girls who have sexual relations with more than one boy are called “sluts”.

Sadly, I have even seen this at BYU (although not involving actual physical intimacy) with boys keeping a tally of who has kissed the most girls, and girls judging one another for making out with more than one boy. This double standard ought not to exist. It is our responsibility to encourage all people, both male and female, to remain virtuous, and also to treat men and women as equals.