Chronicle of a Death Foretold

"The brothers were brought up to be men. The girls were brought up to be married. They knew how to do screen embroidery, sew by machine, weave bone lace, wash and iron, make artificial flowers and fancy candy, and write engagement announcements… my mother thought there were no better-reared daughters. 'They're perfect,' she was frequently heard to say. 'Any man will be happy with them because they've been raised to suffer.'"

This excerpt shows the severity of the lives women lead in the reserved Colombian culture of the town. The narrator describes the upbringing of Angela Vicario and her siblings. Their lives are bounded on all sides by tradition and the expectation to get married and have families. All of the chores they are taught to do-washing, making flowers-are household chores. The idea that the woman in a marriage is expected to suffer is significant becaause it says that no woman enters marriage expecting to be happiness unless she is fortunate enough to love whichever man decides to court her.It is believed that the best way a woman could improve her life was to marry a husband who would provide for her well. Angela Vicario protested to her parents that she did not love Bayardo, but her mother dismissed that idea, telling her that love could be learned.The strictness of the gender roles become clear when it is discovered that Angela is not a virgin when she married, not only is Angela abandoned by her husband, but she is beaten by her mother. The double standards of her culture are highlighted by the fact that the narrator, Santiago, Luis Enrique, and Cristo are all at a whorehouse doing whatever they please.
The sexism is clear when Bayardo san Roman is seen as the victim after losing his wife. Even though Angela Vicario loses a husband, is beaten by her mother, and is dishonored for having premarital sex, she does not receive the same consideration as Bayardo.