Traditional patriarchal norms, rural conservatism, and gender inequality in Latin American societies heavily influence men’s and women’s feelings about love, relationships, and marriage. In rural areas of the country, more than in urban areas. The cultural ideas and stereotypes of “machismo” and “marianismo” play significant roles in gender relations in many Latin American countries in Central and South America.

Traditional Latin American Patriarchy and Gendered Values

The “machismo” and “marianismo” cultural norms of Latin America have a significant impact on the relations between Nicaraguan men and women. According to these cultural stereotypes, men are strong while women are weak in various qualities, not only physical ones. Socially, men have more options when it comes to interpersonal interactions than women do.

In general, men have more power, higher status, and more relationship freedom than women. Thus, intergender relations appear initially as they would in a traditional patriarchy. Once again, people in the country’s rural areas are more traditional and culturally conservative in these regards than those in urban areas (Hagene, 2008; Rebhun, 1999).

What Is the Traditional Patriarchy in Latin America?

Many Latin American countries in Central and South America still have patriarchal cultures. Nicaragua is among those. In these countries, society is typically conservative and characterized by inequalities between men and women. This societal structure commonly characterizes classical patriarchy.

Men’s and women’s gender roles in family life are quite different and unequal in several respects. There are persistent stereotypical distinctions between male and female gender roles and family duties. Men are the dominant members of the family, while women are the submissive members. Despite this inequality, both men and women fulfill their respective family roles, with reasonable contributions from both sides. The man provides resources, establishes rules, and manages family issues. The woman stays at home, takes care of her family, and raises her children. Women are dependent socially and economically on men, who provide them and their families with the resources for subsistence. Such dependency relations look like gender inequality, characterizing this patriarchal culture of gender relationships.

Strange Cases of “Absentee Patriarchy” in Latin America

Sometimes, however, patriarchal practice can turn into the structure of family relationships unexpectedly different from traditional patriarchy. These relationships can be called the “absentee patriarchy.” Here is an example of such a “patriarchy” from Nicaragua—a small Central American country located on the land between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. Let us consider relations between men and women in the rural Nicaraguan community in a small coastal town, San Juan (Hagene, 2008; 2010).

Men are often romantic in their relationships with their wives until they become married. Then, their “romanticism” stretches beyond their wives. Husbands often womanize and even engage in parallel relationships. Women tend to tolerate such extramarital affairs. The relationship turns into polygyny of some kind when women accept their husbands’ infidelity..

Because a man frequently has more than one wife and family, he can be away from his family for extended periods of time. Nonetheless, he attempts to maintain control over his wife and her life. So, in the reality of marriage and family life, he is like an “absentee husband” and an “absentee father”—the “absentee patriarch.”

In such cases, Nicaraguan women are economically and socially independent of men. They work for a living, do housework, and care for their children, and still, they fulfill their conjugal responsibilities to their “visiting” husbands—the “absentee patriarch.” Thus, women live in a state of tension between agency and subordination to their husbands in their marital lives. They accept such unequal exchanges with men despite having little economic dependency.