Answer the question about a book - Essay Example

Under these missions, Hurtado narrows down to marriage, courtship, women as a component of the society and shows how they helped to reshape the roles and identities set by gender and race. This essay, therefore, will identify and show how marriage, courtship and gender facilitated the coming together of the various races in the state of California in the 1800s. Through these tools; gender, marriage and courtship, Hurtado has discussed the libertine in California which was part of the coming together of the various societies into one Californian community.

The shackles of race that held these had to be broken through liberalization and marriage and courtship played the major role in this. Richards (1956) states, “dust was more plentier than pleasure, pleasures more enticing than virtue, fortune was the horse, youth in the saddle, dissipation the track, and desire the spur” (130). The libertine came because of the realization of the evils that were manifested through the tragedy of a teenage death. It was in botched abortion or the brutalization of Indian woman that exposed the seamy underside of gender relations.

To facilitate gender relation, Hurtado uses a market approach to examine the dynamics of gender. Hurtado argues that scarcity serves to raise the status of women by allowing them to escape the shackles of unwanted marriages as well as a disgraceful past. “Minority status does not usually confer power on the powerless, and California was no exception” (130). Hurtado however, interjects that even though the ‘freedoms’ were advantageous to women, they were not meant to benefit women but men though finding available women; available for sexual, social or matrimonial purposes in the scarce market.

According to Richards (57), in the 1850 the ratio of men to women among the Caucasian population in the state of California was 12:2 but by 1860, it had dropped to 2:4. The ‘freedoms’ accorded to women however, remained and served to elevate relations among gender in the state. These ‘freedoms’ were however limited to poorer white women in relation to the colored women who were excluded. Courtship is the other tools that served in promoting cordial relations among the Spaniards, the Mexicans and the American natives in the historic California.

Prior to making up their mind, to enter a marriage agreement or not courtship is a vital process .It serves to facilitate understanding and appreciation of the other person. In this process, it is not always that courtships will lead to marriage. As a result, in most cases, an individual will court several persons and at the end of the day, marry only one. In the 1800s California, this served as an opportunity for the various communities to know and understand each other (Chavez-Garcia 131). Men from the Spaniard community courting women from the Mexican or Native American communities would end up knowing many good virtues about them.

This would be regardless of whether the relationship ended up in marriage or not, it was obvious that the courtship relation had served to know the other better and appreciate them more. Hurtado refers to women as the ‘civilizers’ in the frontiers. The other aspect, according to Hurtado, that served to elevate relations among the communities in California was culture. Culture is a broad aspect, and in this case, it is represented by marriage. The communities