Revealing the lives of migrant couples and transnational households,
this book explores the dark side of the history of migration in
Argentina during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Using court
records, censuses, personal correspondence and a series of case studies,
María Bjerg offers a portrayal of the emotional dynamics of
transnational marital bonds and intimate relationships stretched across
continents. Using microhistories and case studies, this book shows how
migration affected marital bonds with loneliness, betrayal, fear and
frustration.
Focusing primarily on the emotional lives of Italian and Spanish
migrants, this book explores bigamy, infidelity, adultery, domestic
violence and murder within official and unofficial unions. It reveals
the complexities of obligation, financial hardship, sacrifice and
distance that came with migration, and explores how shame, jealousy,
vengeance and disobedience led to the breaking of marital ties. Against
a backdrop of changing cultural contexts Bjerg examines the emotional
languages and practices used by adulterous women against their offended
husbands, to justify domestic violence and as a defence against
homicide. Demonstrating how migration was a powerful catalyst of change
in emotional lives and in evolving social standards, Emotions and
Migration in Early Twentieth-century Argentina reveals intimate and
disordered lives at a time when female obedience and male honour were
not only paramount, but exacerbated by distance and displacement.
