"This abridged edition of Boyer's examination of bigamy in colonial Mexico reveals the lives, routines, and networks of ordinary people caught in extraordinary historical circumstances. From the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, the Inquisition held the power to investigate breaches of the law on monogamy and to recommend punishment for violators. The pursuit of bigamists provides a fascinating picture of both Catholicism and the colonial state.".

"The many stories recounted here convey emotions and relations rarely preserved from past centuries. From a young child enduring abuse and rape by relatives to the wily suitor who plots elopement by tricking a father with a tale of lost loot stored in a robber's cave, we hear the voices of hitherto invisible people. In its campaign to root out bigamy, the Inquisition relied on people to denounce one another.

How they went about this reveals that gossip and curiosity sustained a surer and swifter system of communications than we might have imagined."--BOOK JACKET.