THE MANY REPUBLICAN LOVES: An analysis of the crime of polygamy in Rio de Janeiro (1880 – 1900)
polygamy, republic, immigration.
This work analyzes the crime of polygamy in Rio de Janeiro in the last decade of the Empire and in the first decade of the Republic. This crime, already provided for in imperial legislation, gained new configurations with the beginning of the republican period. Some contemporary intellectuals have considered the beginning of the Republic as a period marked by the repression of Brazilian women through new legislation and medical and scientific knowledge. We ask here whether the logic of repression that other authors have justified applies in any way to the women involved – as victims or defendants – in the crimes of polygamy. At the same time, we also focus on the issue of immigration as an influential factor in the formation of Brazilian families in the period and its relationship with legislation against polygamy. Through these guiding questions, discussions in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, press publications on the subject and criminal proceedings of the period were mobilized.