A scream in the silence. Adultery, advertising and power relations in Santa Fe, 18th century

Abstract

The decision of a woman from Santa Fe elites of filing suit for adultery against her husband -a key character in the reticular structure of local power- was not an "expected" behavior, since this kind of conflict was supposed to be resolved indoors through negotiation and concealment. The lawsuit brought in March 1779 to the Viceroy Vértiz Court triggered actions and reactions which could not have been observed otherwise. This work focuses on a particular and, to a certain extent, exceptional case in order to seize, through it, a reality that is beyond itself. This does not suppose a reduction of the object of the investigation but of the scale of observation. Thus, this case becomes a privileged spot from where to observe the tensions it caused within the local elite; the resources that this elite put into action in order to reestablish an order it felt threaten; and the role played by the Bourbon officials in this conflict under the particular circumstances of late eighteen century, in the Río de la Plata region.