Resumen de Women, Law and Political Crisis in Quito 1765-1830. A Review of Chad Th. Black's The Limits of Gender Domination: Women, The law and Political Crisis in Quito, 1765-1830

Ximena Sosa

• Chad Black, one of the few US historians who writes on Ecuador, analyzes patriarchal domination during the late colonial and early republican periods. By contrasting the legal culture and justice practices during the early and late colonial periods, Black argues that women’s customary legal rights were questioned under Bourbon rule. Therefore, women of all sectors who were habituated to “consultation, negotiation, judicial discretion and contingency” found out that a new legal culture was emerging. According to Black, this period (1765-1830) was the beginning of a strict male domination in which fathers, brothers, husbands and sons eliminated women’s customary legal protections. Furthermore, it changed women’s identities in terms of legal, economic and social practices.