“Throwing Themselves upon the Political Barricades”

This chapter discusses the entry of Catholic women into national politics amidst mid-century petition campaigns. In Mexico, Catholic women's associations played important roles in the process by which women moved from encouraging local piety to entering national politics through active petitioning. The chapter details the importance of petitioning in colonial and nineteenth-century Mexico by referencing the major 1856 campaign. During the 1856 petition campaign, the church and the Catholic press permitted women to act politically without their husbands' permission, which then challenged the notion that husbands ruled their wives and that politics was inappropriate for women. The chapter considers the perspectives of liberals and conservatives concerning the role of women in family and politics.