Asunción Lavrin is a professor of history at Arizona State University at Tempe. Her 1995 book, Women, Feminism, and Social Change in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, 1890–1940, won the Arthur P. Whitaker Prize from the Middle Atlantic Council on Latin American Studies.

Introduction : the scenario, the actors, and the issues / Asunción Lavrin
Sexuality in colonial Mexico : a church dilemma / Asunción Lavrin
Individualization and acculturation : confessions among the Nahauas of Mexico from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century / Serge Gruzinski
Honor, sexuality, and illegitimacy in colonial Spanish America / Ann Twinam
The sinners and the bishop in colonial Venezuela : the Visita of Bishop Mariano Martí, 1771-1784 / Kathy Waldron
Sexual witchcraft, colonialism, and women's powers : views from the Mexican Inquisition / Ruth Behar
Acceptable partners : marriage choice in colonial Argentina, 1778-1810 / Susan M. Socolow
Women, La mala vida, and the politics of marriage / Richard Boyer.
The warmth of the hearth : seventeenth-century Guadalajara families / Thomas Calvo
Divorce in colonial Brazil : the case of São Paulo / Maria Beatriz Nizza Da Silva.

The nine respected scholars who contributed to this stimulating collection focus on a variety of topics (e.g., illegitimacy, conflicts between couples, and divorce) to illustrate the interplay of public and private morality in a variety of colonial Latin American settings. Like Patricia Seed's To Love, Honor, and Obey in Colonial Mexico (1988) this collection highlights civil and ecclesiastical definitions of acceptable expressions of sexuality and their relation to actual practices. Each article rests on a solid base of research. A common trait is the recognition of the importance of church records and religious works in answering questions about the expression of human sexuality in past societies. Lavrin's introduction ties together a number of common themes in the essays while addressing the historiographical issues and research challenges raised by the study of family life and interpersonal relations. Upper-division undergraduates and above.