life experience than Rojas. Born in Castile and living in New Spain since 1557, García also enjoyed a slightly higher social status than Rojas did, claiming a tradesman husband and the ability to write and sign her name very confidently. She may have even written convincing petitions in her own hand.87 In contrast, the court labeled Rojas (of unknown origins) a soltera (sexually active single woman), and she could not sign her name. The official accusations branded García not only as an alcahueta “for fornicating men and women,” but also an encubridora and a tercera, an accessory to fornication and a mediator.88 Rojas may have sought to clear her own name through the intervention of the court, while García intoned the expected rhetoric, using the legal formulas to inscribe her good reputation against the accusations.
According to Rojas and three of her clients, García solicited each of the men as they innocently (as the four accusers portrayed it) strolled past her house at various hours of the night and day. García called to them from her window or stood in the doorway, alone and on occasion with her friend Rojas in the door with her. The targeted men, age twenty, twenty-six, and thirty, were also plebeians, one described as a mestizo and another working as a tailor. In classic bawd style, allegedly García ignored all of their hesitation over engaging in “carnal access” with Rojas and aggressively “persuaded” the four potential fornicators to submit with her persistent verbiage. When Rojas at first refused to have sex with the men, García asked her over and over again (“tantas veces” or “so many times”), promising that each man would “do very well” for her.89 García convinced the men, on some occasions instantly or otherwise over a period of time, to meet Rojas either at their shared house or at the men’s accommodations.90
While Rojas and her lovers risked compromising their reputations by making these detailed accusations, sex exchanged for money and simple fornication between unmarried adults carried no criminal penalty at this time, so García had the most to fear in terms of legal sanctions. The clerical court took seriously and disliked what they heard about García from hostile witnesses, so an official called for her arrest and incarceration in the archdiocesan jail. When questioned directly about accusations of pandering, García (already described as an effective verbal persuader) refuted everything other than the fact that Rojas had lived with her for a few months. She justified this as an act of charity to help a sick friend.91
García built her own case by asserting her superb reputation as an honest married woman while simultaneously tearing down the trustworthiness of the testimonies. According to García, Rojas’s accusations had no value because she was a “public whore [ramera]” who slept with many men for money. García denied any responsibility for either pandering her friend or controlling her “evil living [mal vivir].” Rojas was over twenty-five, unmarried, and did not seem to have a father, uncle, brother, or other relative in the area who might fear that her reputation degraded their honor. García denied any responsibility for her friend’s behavior, maintaining that Rojas was “a free woman and she can go out wherever she wants at night [mujer libre y pudiendo salir donde quiso de noche].”92
Usually the word ramera was used in Spain for a clandestina, while “public” as a descriptor implied that a woman worked in the brothel, and everyone in the community knew it. Rojas could work publicly without violating brothel regulations, as they did not exist, and she was not subject to penal retribution or fines. Her occupation weakened her trustworthiness as a good witness in court, but it was not illegal. Therefore, it behooved García to verbally fit Rojas to the patterns of a bad woman through her immorality, not her criminality, in order to prove that García herself was a good woman.
A group of young Spanish plebeian men who appeared to be García’s close friends (often visiting her house) attested to her good character. These men also confirmed the bad reputations of Rojas and her lovers in contrast to the perfectly respectable García. The witnesses for the defense answered the following series of typically leading questions:
[Was García] a good Christian who lived in seclusion in fear of god and her reputation, providing a good example everywhere she went? Was María de Rojas a public woman, a whore that earned her money publicly with her body, for any price that they give her, and for this should it be understood that the witnesses lied in saying that [she used] an alcahueta? Were Rojas and García enemies because Rojas said that García had a bad marriage?
Lastly, the witnesses had to provide their character judgments of Rojas’s three lovers, by definition lascivious and vile men who had lived in sin with Rojas. These questions solidified García’s reputation and established that her accusers were sinful people and not good witnesses.93 The defense claimed that Rojas had sex with lewd, libidinous men who carried on illicit affairs. They were apasionado, men enflamed by their baser passions to commit acts of lust while neglecting to call on reason to control their instincts.94
Every witness for the defense agreed that García had a good reputation and Christian character, in contrast to María de Rojas’s. In describing Rojas, the men inscribed her body with her sexual sins: her indiscriminate and evil exchange of money for sex. They denounced her because she openly monetized her body.95 While García lived a discreet and secluded life as a woman of honor, Rojas walked the streets alone, “wrapped in a sheet” like a common woman. A witness called her a public woman and a puta. She received money “with her body” from anybody and everybody who would pay. Two men testified that Rojas, a public woman and a whore (ramera), “sold her body” in order to eat.96 The witnesses interpreted her lack of selectivity to mean that Rojas did not require the services of a bawd. They opined that given her sexual proclivities, a mediator simply was not necessary. In other words, Rojas took the initiative in sexual aggressiveness, and she did not require persuading and the subtle communication arts of a bawd. This interpretation recalls the age-old Islamic and Spanish definition of alcahuetas as subtle, sophisticated go-betweens for discreet lovers, not crass high-volume ruffians of the kind that an alleged whore such as Rojas might use.
This case, because of how it recorded a fight between former friends, records the most extreme verbiage available to denounce a woman’s character. The animosity of all involved created a boldly written documentation of transactional sex. However, even with all of its specificity, some ambiguity remains. The testimonies made in her favor described García as a woman who lived an exemplary, secluded life, but at the same time she received male visitors.97 Despite the witnesses’ assertions that García was a reputable Christian, their statements leave room to consider that a respectable woman like her, who often conversed with young men at her house, men very willing to stand up for her in court, would make an excellent procuress. The witnesses never explicitly denied that García might have this occupation. They only refuted that Rojas needed help organizing her paying clients. If these young men did use García as their mediator in sexual liaisons, they would certainly wish to speak well of her in court, in order to continue enjoying her bawdy talents.
DOMESTIC PROCURING
The above cases demonstrate that without a thriving brothel, sixteenth-century male residents of Mexico City had several options for partaking in transactional sex. They could seek out women who pandered their servants or their daughters in a domestic setting, in a sense visiting informal family brothels. They could go to taverns, looking for women who had ruffians who took money in exchange for sex with their women, sometimes even their wives. This option could result in violent encounters with ruffians such as Antonio Temiño. Lastly, while walking the streets, they could look out for women selling sex (allegedly, what María de Rojas did) or contact a bawd like Catalina García. All of the above options suggest a lack of exclusivity, a level of somewhat indiscriminating sex that compared roughly with the legal brothels in Spain, aimed at a plebeian clientele satisfied to meet with “public women.”
Men who chose a more discreet path had another very appealing option that fits with the most common understandings of nonmarital sex in the viceroyalties: the servant/master relationship.98 This popular
