Mountain Marriage

Prior to the 1970s, marriage in Olinala occurred in four forms: civil marriages, church marriages, free union, and mountain marriages. Economics orchestrated the choice of marriage.

In the earlier tradition, mountain marriages were an exciting event in which the kid­napper, and his fellow horsemen, rode up and captured (robar, to steal) a young woman. While some women did arrange for their own kidnapping, others were alarmed when they were carried off into a new life. All women yelled for help as their bodies were grabbed and thrown over the horse, but the people in the community believed that every woman had agreed with their capture and that the screams were self-protection against the anger of their parents, cheated of their wishes for a formal wedding. The term robar la mujer, to steal a woman, meant to steal her from her parents/family, not from herself.

A joke in the community came from an actual event in which a kidnapper, slow to act, almost thwarted the pre-arranged kidnapping. Maria and Juan had secretly decided to elope and to have a mountain marriage. On the prearranged day, which was a Sunday— market day and a good day for people to linger around in various areas talking and shop­ping—Maria silently walked to the designated corner, far from her family who might stop the kidnapping. Along came Juan riding up on his horse to “capture” Maria. As Juan leaned over to grab and force Maria over the horse, Maria yelled: “Ayudeme, ayudeme [help me, help me].” Juan, though, had trouble getting Maria over the horse. People nearby, who were not family and thus not allowed to interfere in family matters, heard intermingled within Maria's yells for help a quiet voice that whispered: “Apurete, apurete [hurry up, hurry up].” The “hurry up” comment demonstrated that Maria was an accomplice in the kidnapping.

In the mountains, the kidnappers had a code of honor that respected the wishes of the woman kidnapped: No man should touch a woman sexually without her permission or physically force her to have sex. To force a woman physically to have sex could damage her internally and such internal damage could prevent her from having children: Hurting one person could result in hurting others not yet born.

When discussing this code of honor with women unwillingly kidnapped, the code held another meaning. While all women agreed that the kidnapper honored the code, the woman’s decision was situationally inevitable. Any kidnapped woman who returned to the town, whether she had had sexual intercourse or not with the kidnapper, would still be sentenced to a life as a wife to the kidnapper. The community would assume that she was part of the prearranged kidnapping and that she had had sexual intercourse with him in the mountains. The truth was irrelevant: From the perspective of the women, they had no option once they had been kidnapped. Eventually they would have to succumb to the kidnapper sexually whether they desired it or not. Their fate was sealed. Sexual inter­course for procreation was their only solution to bring some peace into their lives. Kid­nappers, who set up a situation in which they forced women to decide to have sex, com­mitted rape.