Daily Life of the Aztecs

by Jacques Soustelle

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  the missionary, 'the Mexicans were not without good customs.'

  When the relatives of the young man had decided upon the choice of his future wife, which was not before they had consulted the soothsayers to know what omens were to be drawn from the signs under which both the parties were born, they then called in the cihuatlanque, the old women who acted as go-betweens; for no advance was to be made directly. These women went to see the girl's parents, and 'with a great deal of rhetoric and fine language' 26 they explained the purpose of their visit. Good manners required that the first time they should be answered with a humble excuse and a civil refusal. The girl was not yet old enough to marry; she was not worthy of the person who asked for her.

  However, everybody knew how to take this, and the next day, or some days later, the matrons came back and finally the parents went so far as to say, 'We do not know how this young man can have made such a mistake, for our daughter is of no value, and indeed she is rather stupid. But still, seeing that you seem to set so much store by it, we will have to speak to the girl's uncles and aunts, and all her other relatives. So come back again tomorrow, and we will settle the matter.'

  When they had had their family council and when all the relatives had given their consent, the girl's parents told the young man's parents, and then there was no more to arrange but the day of the wedding. For this the soothsayers were consulted again, in order to set the marriage under a favourable sign, such as acatl (reed), ozomatli (monkey), cipactli (water-monster), quauhtli (eagle), or calli (house). It was also necessary to prepare the dishes, the cocoa, the flowers and the pipes for the marriage-feast. They made tamales all night and all day for two or three days, and hardly slept at all' during the time of getting ready. 27 If the family had the least degree of wealth or the smallest claim to standing, the marriage was a most important business. All the relations and friends were invited, as well as the young man's former masters and the considerable people of the district or the town.

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  The marriage-ceremony itself took place at the young man's house at nightfall. The day before there was feasting at the bride's house: at a midday banquet the old men drank octli and the married women brought their gifts. In the afternoon the bride had a bath and washed her hair: her legs and arms were decorated with red feathers and her face was made up with the light yellow of tecozauitl. Thus adorned, she sat near the fire on a dais covered with mats, and the elders of the young man's family came to offer her the ceremonial greeting. 'My daughter,' they said, 'you honour us, the old men and old women who are your relations. You are now counted among the women; you are no longer a child; you have started to be a grown-up person. Poor child! You must leave your father and your mother. Daughter, we welcome you and wish you happiness.'

  One can imagine the bride, decorated with feathers and flowers, made up, dressed in many-coloured embroideries, moved and somewhat trembling though accustomed by her education to hide her feelings, compelling herself to be calm as she answered, 'Your hearts have been good to me; I feel that the words that you have spoken are precious. You have spoken to me and advised me like true fathers and mothers. I am grateful for all the kindness that you have shown me.'

  At night, a procession conducted the bride to her new home. The young man's relations went in front, 'many respectable old women and matrons', then came the bride: an old woman carried her on her back; or if she were of good family it was in a litter that she went to her new house, on the shoulders of two porters. She was accompanied by two lines of girls, relations and unmarried friends, holding torches in their hands. 28

  The happy procession wound along the streets amid songs and shouts and through the crowds of onlookers who cried out 'Happy girl!' until it reached the bridegroom's house. He came forward to receive her; in his hand he had a censer, and when the bride reached the threshold she was given another. As a sign of mutual respect each censed the

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  other, and everybody went into the house, singing and dancing.

  The marriage-rite took place before the hearth. To begin with, the two young people, seated beside one another upon two mats, were given their presents. The bride's mother gave her future son-in-law men's clothes; the bridegroom's mother gave the bride a blouse and a skirt. Then the cihuatlanque tied the young man's cloak and the girl's blouse together, and from that moment they were married: the first thing that they did was to share a dish of tamales, each giving the other the little maize-cakes by hand.

  At this stage the happiness of the wedding-party broke out into songs and dances; then the guests set upon the heaps of food and those whose age allowed them became exceedingly drunk. The married pair, however, who had gone off to the marriage-chamber, stayed there in prayer for four days, without consummating their marriage. During all this time they did not come out of their room except to offer incense at the family altar at noon and at midnight. On the fourth night there was a bed made for them, a pile of mats among which were placed feathers and a piece of jade: these were probably symbols of the children who were to be born, they always being called 'rich plumes', and 'precious stones'. On the fifth day they bathed themselves in the temazcalli, and a priest came to bless them by scattering a little consecrated water over them.

  In great families the ceremony of the fifth day was almost as elaborate as that of the marriage itself: the relatives blessed the newly-wedded pair four times with water and four times with octli. The bride adorned her head with white feathers and her arms and legs with coloured plumes; there was another exchange of presents and at another banquet the two families and their friends had another opportunity of dancing, singing and drinking. Among the plebeians these festivities were quieter and less costly, but their general plan was the same as that which has just been described.

  This, at any rate, was the ideal that everybody tried to accomplish. Yet in practice it happened that amorous young

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  couples did not ask their parents' consent, but went off together privately. It seems that these were usually plebeians who did not want to have to wait until they had accumulated all the things that were necessary for the presents, the feasts, etc. 'At the end of a certain time, when he had saved up enough to invite their families, the young man went to see his wife's parents and said, 'I admit my fault . . . we were wrong to be joined without your consent . . . You must have been quite astonished not to see your daughter any more (sic). But we both agreed to live together like married people, and now we would like to live properly and work for ourselves and our children: forgive us, and give us your consent.' The parents agreed, 'and they then went through the ceremonies and what festivities their poor means would allow.' 29

  It was in this manner and according to these rites that a man married his principal wife, and he could only marry in this way with one woman; but he could have as many secondary wives as he liked. The Mexican marriage-system seems to be a compromise between monogamy and polygamy -- one 'legitimate' spouse (this is the term generally used by the chroniclers), she with whom a man was married with all the ceremonies that have been described, but an indefinite number of officially-recognised concubines who had their place in the house, and whose status was in no way the subject of sniggering or contempt.

  The historian Oviedo recounts a conversation that he says he had with the Spaniard Juan Cano, the third husband of Doña Isabel Montezuma, the daughter of the emperor Motecuhzoma II, as follows --

  'Question. I have been told that Montezuma had a hundred and fifty sons and daughters . . . How can you maintain that Doña Isabel, your wife, is a legitimate daughter of Montezuma, and how did your father-in-law manage to tell his legitimate children from the bastards, and his real wives from his concubines?

  Answer of Don Juan Cano. The Mexicans observed the following custom when they married a legitimate wife . . . They took the flap of the bride's blouse and tied it with

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  the cotton cloak that the bridegroom wo
re . . . And those who were married without this ceremony were not held to be really married, and the children born of the union were not considered legitimate and did not inherit.' 30

  The Aztec chronicler Pomar 31 states, 'The king (of Texcoco) had as many wives as he chose, and of every kind of descent, high or low; but only one legitimate wife among them all.' The texts are unanimous upon this point: for example, Ixtlilxochitl says that the custom of the rulers was 'to have one legitimate wife who could be the mother of their successor'. 32 The anonymous conquistador also says that 'the Indiana have many wives -- as many as they can feed, like the Moors . . . but there is one who is above all the others and whose children inherit to the detriment of their half-brothers'. 33 Muñoz Camargo states that the legitimate wife gave orders to her husband's concubines, and indeed that it was she who adorned and beautified the one whom her husband chose 'in order to sleep with her'. 34

  There is no doubt that the half-barbarous tribes which came from the north were monogamous, as all the descriptions of their manner of life demonstrate. Polygamy must have remained customary among the settled inhabitants, the former Toltecs, of the central valley, and as the standard of living rose it became more and more usual, particularly in the ruling class and among the sovereigns. The latter numbered their secondary wives by hundreds or by thousands ( Nezaualpilli of Texcoco had more than two thousand 35 ) and there was an established custom of ratifying the alliances between cities by the exchange of wives of the various dynasties.

  One should not be led astray by the expressions 'legitimate' and 'illegitimate' which were used after the Spanish conquest because of the influence of European ideas: the condition of the secondary wives and of their children was in no way a shameful one. Perhaps in theory only the sons of the principal wife succeeded, but the authorities abound in examples to the contrary: one has but to mention the most famous of them all, that of the

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  emperor Itzcoatl, who was the son of a concubine of the most humble origin. In any case, the children of secondary wives were always considered pilli, and if they were worthy of them, they could reach the highest offices in the state. It would be totally erroneous to think of them as 'natural children' or 'bastards', with the connotations that these words have in our world.

  Yet if in theory the polygamous family was accepted without question, in fact the jealousy between a man's wives and the rivalry between their children caused a very great deal of trouble. Sometimes the concubines would plot to sow discord between the husband and his children by the principal wife: it was in this way that a favourite of king Nezaualcoyotl succeeeded in bringing disaster upon the head of the young prince Tetzauhpiltzintli, 'the wonderful child'.

  Tetzauhpiltzintli, the son of the king and his chief wife, 'rejoiced in all the gifts that nature can bestow upon an illustrious prince. He had an excellent disposition, and although his tutors and masters never had to take pains with him he became a widely accomplished person, a considerable philosopher, a poet and soldier of the first order, and he was even deeply versed in nearly all the mechanical arts . . . Another prince, the son of the king and a concubine, carved a precious stone in the form of a bird in so lifelike a manner that the bird seemed to be living, and he gave this jewel as a present to his father. His father was delighted with the aspect of the jewel, and he wished it to be given to his son Tetzauhpiltzintli, for he loved him exceedingly.'

  Who could have believed that this charming family scene could develop into a tragedy? This, however, was the case. For the concubine's son, following his mother's counsels, went to the king and told him that the prince had made a most ungracious reply, which made him suspect that he meant to revolt against his father: that he had said that he did not care for the mechanical arts which preoccupied the prince who had carved the jewel, but only for military affairs and that he was determined to rule the world, and, if

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  possible, to become a greater man than his father; and that while he spoke in this way he had showed his half-brother an arsenal filled with weapons.

  The king was very much moved at this news, and sent a confidential servant to visit his son; and in fact the messenger observed that the palace which had been given to the prince had its walls covered with arms. Nezaualcoyotl consulted with his allies, the rulers of Mexico and Tlacopan, and begged them to see his son and to reproach him, so that he might return to his duty. But the two other monarchs, who were perhaps not at all sorry to weaken the neighbouring dynasty, 'went to the prince's palace under the pretence of visiting him to see some building that he was having done; and certain officers who accompanied them, feigning to put a garland of flowers about his neck, strangled him . . . When the king heard of the death of the prince, whom he loved dearly, he wept bitterly, bewailing the hardness of the two kings' hearts . . . For several days he stayed in the woods, sad and afflicted, lamenting his unhappiness, for he had no other legitimate son to succeed him at the head of the kingdom, although by his concubines he had had sixty sons and fifty-seven daughters. Most of the sons had become famous soldiers, and the daughters had married lords of his court or else of Mexico or Tlacopan; and to all these he had given many estates, villages and lands.' 36

  It seems that the royal house of Texcoco was marked out for a tragic fate: Nezaualpilli, Nezaualcoyotl's successor, was also responsible for his own son's death. Huexotzincatzin, his eldest son, 'was an outstanding philosopher and poet, as well having other gifts and natural graces, and so he composed a satire addressed to the lady of Tula, his father's favourite concubine. She, too, was an excellent poet, and they took to exchanging poetic blows. The prince was suspected of making advances to the favourite. The matter was brought before the court, and as, according to the law, it was a case of treason towards the king which carried the death-penalty, it was necessary to carry out the sentence, although his father loved him beyond measure.' 37

  In passing, it may be noticed that this palace-drama was

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  one of the remote causes of the fall of the Mexican empire: for, Nezaualpilli's heir dying in these circumstances, the succession to the throne of Texcoco was furiously disputed by several of his half-brothers, and one of them, Ixtlilxochitl, went over to the Spanish side with his supporters and his army.

  This 'lady of Tula' who was, perhaps against her will, the cause of the tragic death of Huexotzincatzin, may be held up as a finished type of the Mexican magnate's favourite. Although she was only the daughter of a person engaged in commerce she was as cultivated as she was beautiful -- she could compete with the king and the great men in knowledge and in poetry. She had a kind of private court and she lived in a palace that had been built for her; and 'she kept the king very submissive to her will'. 38

  It appears that all these wives, principal and secondary, had a great many children, and the polygamous families became exceedingly numerous. Nezaualpilli had a hundred and forty-four sons and daughters, of whom eleven were by his chief wife. 39 The Crónica Mexicayotl lists twenty-two children of Axayacatl, twenty of Auitzotl and nineteen of Motecuhzoma. The Ciuacoatl Tlacaeleltzin, a great imperial dignitary under Motecuhzoma I, first married a noblewoman, a girl from Amecameca, by whom he had five children, then twelve secondary wives, each of whom had a son or a daughter; but, adds the text, 'other Mexicans say that the elder Tlacaeleltzin, the Ciuacoatl, begot eighty-three children'. 40

  Clearly, only dignitaries and wealthy men could contend with the expense of families such as these. Even though it was limited to the upper strata, polygamy hastened the progress of demographic evolution and helped to compensate the effects of frequent war. Many men died on the battlefield or as sacrifices before they had been able to marry or, in any case, before they had had time to beget many children. In the lists of names that are to be found in some chronicles the annotations 'killed in fighting against Uexotzinco' or 'killed in battle at Atlixco' continually recur, like a funereal leitmotiv. 41 The widows could either stay by themselves and then remarry
-- and it often happened that a

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  widow married one of her husband's slaves and made him her steward 42 -- or else become a secondary wife to one of the dead man's brothers. 43

  The man was the unquestioned head of the family, and the atmosphere of the family was decidedly patriarchal. He was supposed to treat all his wives as equals, but a bad husband would sometimes make one of them, particularly the principal wife, undergo all kinds of miseries. Public opinion was very much against this. Moquiuixtli, the ruler of Tlatelolco, had married a sister of the Mexican emperor Axayacatl, the princess Chalchiuhnenetzin: but apart from the fact that her breath smelt, she 'was skinny, and she had no flesh, and because of this her husband never wished to see her. He took all the presents that her brother Axayacatl sent her and gave them to his secondary wives. The princess Chalchiuhnenetzin suffered much: she was made to sleep in a corner against the wall, by the metlatl, and she only had a coarse cloak to cover herself with, and that all in rags. And king Moquiuixtli would not sleep with her: he spent his nights only with his concubines, very lovely women, for the noble Chalchiuhnenetzin was but a meagre creature -- she had no flesh, and her bosom was no more than bone. So Moquiuixtli did not love her, and he used her ill. All this came to be known and the emperor Axayacatl grew furious: it was for this reason that the war (between Mexico and Tlatelolco) began. And this is how it can be said that Tlatelolco perished because of the concubines.' 44