The law of the casados: married men in the Indies ordered home to their wives
A whole título of the Recopilación de leyes de las Indias exists to force men who crossed the Atlantic to return to the wives they left behind: audiencias to find them and ship them home with their goods, licences refused to married men, no bail for those jailed for it, and from 1578 the same rigour inside the Indies. The crown states its reason — "remediar el daño, que las mugeres padecen en ausencia de sus maridos" — and the laws record how the rule was evaded.
Why this wins its question: Accounts of Spanish emigration to the Americas mention in passing that married men needed their wives' consent or a licence; almost none quote the law, and the striking parts are exactly the parts that get dropped. Here the whole título is set out from the page: the audiencias hunting for absent husbands and shipping them back "con todos sus bienes", the bond taken at the Casa de Contratación, the prison and the escort to Portobelo, the false widower's information that the Council of the Indies stopped believing, and the sentence in which the crown says the point of all of it is "remediar el daño, que las mugeres padecen en ausencia de sus maridos" — followed by the 1578 clause extending the same rigour to any man living apart from his wife anywhere in the Indies. The evasions are quoted alongside the commands, so the entry shows a duty that was legislated for eighty years because it kept failing, rather than a tidy claim that it worked.
Claims
Every assertion below is bound to registered sources and carries its own confidence. Weight them; do not treat the page as uniformly authoritative.
The subject has its own título in the code. Recopilación de leyes de las Indias, libro VII, título tercero, is headed "DE LOS CASADOS, Y DESPOSADOS EN ESPAÑA, é Indias, que están ausentes de sus mugeres, y esposas", opening at folio 354 of the second volume of the fourth impression. The índice at the front of the volume prints the title one phrase shorter, without the words "é Indias" that stand over the text itself — a difference that matters, because those two words are what extend the rule to couples inside the Indies.
Ley j, carrying dates from Valladolid 19 October 1544 through Madrid 1569, Navalcarnero 1579 and San Lorenzo 1607 to 1614, states the policy: it is fitting "que nuestros vasallos casados, ó desposados en estos Reynos, y ausentes en los de las Indias, donde viven, y pasan apartados por mucho tiempo de sus propias mugeres, vuelvan á ellos, y asistan á lo que es de su obligacion, segun su estado", and the ecclesiastical prelates are charged to inform the viceroys and justices of who these men are "para que los hagan embarcar, y venir á estos Reynos sin dispensacion, ni prorogacion de término".
The enforcement clause is concrete. The audiencias, alcaldes del crimen, governors, corregidores and alcaldes mayores are to inform themselves "con mucha especialidad, y todo cuidado" of the married or betrothed men in their districts who came without licence or whose term has expired, and "los hagan luego embarcar en la primera ocasion, con todos sus bienes, y haciendas á hacer vida con sus mugeres, é hijos, sin embargo que digan haber enviado, ó envien por sus mugeres"; the generals of the armadas of the North and South Seas are ordered to carry it out for their part "precisamente".
The rule ran at the point of departure too. Ley ij (Bosque de Segovia 1565, Madrid 1569, Lisbon 1619) forbids any viceroy, president, audiencia, governor or justice to give a married man of these kingdoms licence or extension to reside in the Indies, save in a case "tan raro, preciso, é inexcusable" proved by "informacion cierta, y verdadera, que haga plenísima probanza", and then only for a limited time — "sobre que les encargamos las conciencias".
Ley iij (Madrid, 12 December 1619) sets the machinery, including bigamy. Married men who crossed with or without licence and who married again in the Indies while their wives lived "sean castigados conforme á derecho"; those who crossed with licence, having given bond at the Casa de Contratación de Sevilla that they would return, are "apremiados por prision, y todo rigor á que vuelvan á hacer vida maridable con sus mugeres" even after the bond is forfeited, and may be shipped as prisoners, handed over to the general, the cost taken from their own goods. Where a man is allowed to give surety instead, the guarantor is bound in a sum "de forma que el temor de esta pena obligue á no caer en la culpa".
The laws are a catalogue of the ways men escaped them, which is the best evidence of how far the rule bound in practice. Ley iiij (Valladolid, 5 September 1555) reports that men sent home as casados contracted debts while waiting for a ship so that creditors would sue and keep them ashore — "aunque algunas son verdaderas, otras son muy cautelosas". Ley v (Valladolid, 29 June 1592) reports that they procured offices as agents of the Cruzada, and orders that being so named shall not save them. Ley vj (Madrid, 12 January 1591) reports that men remitted from Peru were being let out of the jails of Tierra Firme and going back, and orders the audiencia of Panama to hold them "hasta Portobelo, donde sean embarcados, puestos en el registro, y dirigidos á la Casa de Contratacion de Sevilla, como no se puedan huir, ni ausentar".
Ley viiij (Madrid 1620, confirmed 1626) records the commonest fraud and the crown's own scepticism about its own courts: men pressed to go home presented informaciones proving their wives were dead, "y aunque algunas se presumen falsas, por no poderse averiguar, se les da crédito". Such proofs were therefore to be admitted only after presentation to the Council of the Indies. The law adds the reason for extending the ban to proofs made in the Indies: "por la experiencia que ha habido de ser falsas".
The motive is stated by the legislator, and it is the injury to the women. Ley viij (El Pardo, 2 December 1578; Lisbon, 10 August 1619) says that everything ordered about bringing husbands back "es á causa de remediar el daño, que las mugeres padecen en ausencia de sus maridos, y obviar otros inconvenientes". It then extends the rule geographically: because it is no less just that the same be kept in the Indies with men "que estuvieren en partes distantes de donde sus mugeres residieren", the viceroys, presidents, audiencias and governors are to see that all live with their wives, "haciéndolos ir, y cohabitar con ellas, usando del mismo rigor, que con los casados, que las tienen en estos Reynos".
Licence to leave a wife behind was rationed by an assessment of the household. Ley vij (San Lorenzo, 26 August 1618) allows no married man in the Indies to come to Spain without cause shown to the viceroy, president, audiencia or governor, who must weigh "la edad de marido, y muger, número de hijos, sustento, y remedio que les queda, y otras circunstancias, que hagan justa la ausencia", grant it only for a limited time against bonds, and keep the licences and sureties in a book "en que se ponga esta cuenta, y razon" deposited in the archive of the audiencia or of the head city of the district.
The closing cross-references of the título show the same duty running through the rest of the code, including its harshest edges: oidores are not to release or grant delays "á los casados presos por ausentes de sus mugeres"; soldiers absent from their wives are to have their places struck off the rolls; and, on the other side, married men of Spain holding encomiendas "puedan venir por sus mugeres". Men were imprisoned under this law, and the code says so in its own index of itself.
What the source is, and what it is not. This is a printed law code — the fourth impression, Madrid 1791, of a compilation closed in 1680 — read here as page scans. It is strong evidence of what was repeatedly commanded between 1544 and 1626, and, through what it keeps re-commanding, of how badly the command was obeyed. It is not evidence of how many men were shipped home, how many women were reunited, or whether the extension to couples inside the Indies was enforced for indigenous, African-descended or casta households as it was for Spanish ones — no case, register or count is cited here. One physical caution for anyone following the citation: on page 356 the verso running head reads "Libro VI. Título III." where the material is libro VII, título III.