Meanings of Kidnappings

In the 1950s and 1960s, the most prominent perception of mountain marriages celebrated the self-esteem of the kidnappers and his male friends. The action and daring, the ability to outwit the young women’s parents, the take-charge action, and the chance for real love to blossom were their foci.

Women’s experiences in mountain marriages vary from being an active participant to interested party to unsuspecting victim. Let me begin with an active participant’s experi­ence. Maria Jesus, with a huge smile, recounted the months prior to the kidnapping. Her responsibility was to bring water to the house from the corner water pump. There she met Ricardo. As the days, weeks and months passed, Ricardo spent a few minutes each day wooing Maria Jesus. They timed their visits to the water faucet. Since Maria Jesus’ par­ents would not agree with her marriage to Ricardo who had captured her heart, she and Ricardo arranged one Sunday for the kidnapping. At a prearranged time and place, Maria Jesus stood at a safe distance from all her members of her family and at an easy enough location for Ricardo and his friends to kidnap her. The kidnapping occurred, and that Sunday night in the mountains, Ricardo and Maria Jesus had sexual intercourse to insure their union. With time, perceptions have changed, and her parents and her husband now work together. Even today, she remembers the cheers of the people in the community as she was carried off to the mountains screaming, with a secret glee, for “help.”

Women as interested parties told of their kidnappings.

Shortly after moving in with Guatelupe and his family, Rosalda learned the truth: He was a drunk. He had visited her in his sober moments and hid his bottled times from her view. Her husband now, her husband for life, was an alcoholic. Her own family rejected her for her betrayal of them and would not let her return. As they perceived it, she must take responsibility for her actions. Because of his unreliability in working, Rosalda had to suffer raising her children on only the efforts of herself and her sometime husband. She stated that her difficult life was due to her parents' desire to keep her ignorant of people's reputations in the community.

For all women who did not expect a kidnapping, their life with their family ended one Sunday when they were transferred, without any previous knowledge of the upcom­ing event, to the mountains and thereafter permanently to their parents'-in-laws house. All women agreed that the method of marriage was, in all aspects, unpleasant and gruel­ing. During a peaceful stroll around the market, while waiting leisurely in their front doorway, or while walking casually for a bucket of water, a group of men grabbed these women, bound their arms and legs, threw them over a horse with their stomach and body battered by the galloping of the horse on rocky and mountainous terrain, taken to an un­known and hidden area in the mountains, forced to sleep outdoors without the comfort of a home or bed, left to eat tortillas and beans that were a day or so old, and imprisoned to listen to this kidnapper who stole her life.

Every single woman rejected the method of mountain marriages, but the life after the kidnapping impacted their interpretation of the act. For those men who were good hus­bands, who were dedicated, worked hard, and helped raise their children, the women learned to love the kidnapper and regretted only the marriage method not the marriage partner. For those women who discovered that the kidnapper was a rejected man in the community, the method of marriage and their husband for life were both disasters— unavoidable and unendurable. They acknowledged that their life was without pleasure.

Just as kidnappers with the support of the community tried to control and make life decisions for some women against their will, people in our culture likewise take that ac­tion. The historical control in Olinala occurs in terms of current control in United States.