Reframing Latin America: A Cultural Theory Reading ... - BGSU Blogs

an opening jaunt: el salvador in 1923 71
Sympathy and comfort were offered in abundance. Each of the ladies
seemed to have a friend or relative who was suggested as a substitute. I was
forced to decline the suggestions.
“We are merely waiting, my sweetheart and I, until the old millionaire
dies. Then we shall inherit his wealth, and live happily ever after.”
There was a moment of shocked silence. Some one suggested that I was
joking, but was immediately overruled by the others. This, they insisted,
was a common practice in the United States. Anything was possible among
Americans! And was I not even jealous that I must wait while my beloved
lived with another?
“Not at all. I’ve cabled a second girl, and she’ll be my wife until the fi rst
one is free. We do that regularly.”
My love affairs became the sensation of the community. And the story
did not reach the breaking point until the fi rst girl, in the furor of her
love for me, announced in an imaginary cable that she had poisoned her
husband, and that the millions were ours. Even then, there were several
doubtful inquiries as to whether I really meant it. And when I confessed
that the whole story was fi ctitious, they were vastly disappointed. It was
all so in keeping with their visions of the United States that they wished
to believe it.
IX
In all of these women one observed a strangely child-like quality.
When better conversational subjects were exhausted, several of them
requested that I guess their ages. Oddly enough, in this land where frankness
is seldom encountered, women make no effort to hide the number of
their years. Perhaps it is because their personal vanity, so very manifest in
younger girls, practically ceases after marriage has been achieved.
One of them I judged to be fi fty. To please her I guessed forty. She proved in
reality to be thirty-two. They grow old so quickly here. Yet in their manner
they retain toward men that air of a child toward a parent. Should a husband
see fi t to discuss with them any serious subject, they listen in awed admiration
to his opinions, exclaiming occasionally, “I see! Ah, I understand!”
It would probably offend the average Latin American to discover that his
spouse knew as much about anything as he did himself. He likes the role
of the patient mentor. He prefers that his wife be a gentle pet rather than
a comrade. I dined one day with a Salvadorian gentleman and his wife; the
lady, who came from one of the leading families, had been educated abroad
and had traveled extensively; yet the gentleman, although he conversed