Free My Invented Country by Isabel Allende

block.” The general idea was for the boy to satisfy his sexual needs with the maid, so he wouldn’t “go too far” with a girl of his own social class; and after all, a maid was safer than a prostitute. In rural areas there was a local version of the Spanish derecho a pernada, which in feudal times allowed the lord to bed any bride on the night of her wedding. In Chile, the tradition was never that organized: the patron just went to bed with anyone and at anytime he pleased. So the landowners sowed their lands with bastards, and even today there are regions where nearly everyone has the same last name. (One of my ancestors knelt to pray after every rape: “Lord, I don’t do this for fun and games, only for more sons to serve in Your name . . .”) Today the nanas have become so emancipated that the lords of their domains prefer to hire illegal immigrants from Peru, whom they can mistreat as badly as they used to their Chilean servant girls.
    In matters of education and health, Chilean women are at or above the level of the men, but not in opportunities and political power. The normal pattern in the workforce is that they do the hard work and the men direct. Very few women occupy high posts in government, industry, or private or public enterprise; they bump into that ever-present glass ceiling. When a woman does reach a top-level position, let’s say, minister in the government or director of a bank, it is cause for amazement and admiration. In the last ten years, however, public opinion is registering positive for women as political leaders: they are seen as a viable alternative because they have demonstrated that they are often more honest, efficient, and hardworking than men. What a revelation! When women organize, they wield great influence, but they seem unaware of their own strength. There was the example, for instance, during the administration of Salvador Allende, when rightist women went out beating pots and pans to protest shortages and to dump chicken feathers in front of the Military School, inciting the soldiers to subversion. They helped foment the military coup. Years later, womenwere the first to go out and publicly denounce military repression, confronting water hoses, nightsticks, and bullets. They formed a powerful group called “Women for Life,” which played a fundamental role in overturning the dictatorship of Pinochet, but after the election they decided to dissolve the movement. Once more they ceded their power to men.
    I should clarify that Chilean women, who are so slow to fight for political power, are true guerrillas when it comes to love. In affairs of the heart, they are truly dangerous, and, it must be said, they fall in love with considerable frequency. According to the statistics, 58 percent of married women are unfaithful. I wonder if couples don’t often switch: while the man seduces his friend’s wife, his own spouse is in the same hotel in the arms of his friend. In colonial times, when Chile was part of the vice-regency of Lima, the Inquisition sent a Dominican priest from Peru to accuse a number of women of high social standing of engaging in oral sex with their husbands. (And how did they know that? ) The trial never went anywhere because the women in question refused to be browbeaten. The night after the trial they sent their husbands—who somehow or other must have participated in the sin, though only the women were being judged—to dissuade the inquisitor. They overtook him in a dark, narrow street and without further ado they castrated him, like a steer. The poor Dominican returned to Lima sans testicles, and the matter was never mentioned again.
    Though not reaching quite such extremes, I have a story about a friend who couldn’t rid himself of an impassioned lover until finally one day he escaped while she was taking a siesta. He had packed a few belongings in an overnight bag and was running down the street after a