Mujeres Públicas and women in public: Scrutinising the history of prostitution in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Mexico

Abstract

Past studies of prostitution have mislabelled Mexican women as prostitutes when it is not clear that they had engaged in transactional sex. Here, we examine the history of prostitution between 1750 and 1865, detailing both legal frameworks and judicial evidence to address the reasons for the inflation of prostitution's presence in Mexico. These sources reveal that the exaggeration of prostitution's presence is explained by the fact that prostitution was often associated with another legal category – amancebamiento (cohabitation), and that female cohabiters were recreated in the minds of court officials and other observers when their ‘scanadalous’ behaviour rendered them prostitutes.