MEXICO CITY - For 147 years, marriage vows in Mexico portrayed women as delicate, weak and potentially annoying.
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These days, judges across Mexico are switching to versions that stress equality and mutual support, reflecting the growing power of women in a country still struggling with macho attitudes.
“As a father, I wouldn’t want a judge to tell to my daughter that she was the weakest part of a human being and that she is subject to her husband’s rule,” said Salvador Mendoza, a civil court judge in Mexico City who stopped reading the old vows in 2001.
The old vows, a 537-word ode to marriage, were considered open-minded and ahead of their time when they were penned 147 years ago by Melchor Ocampo, a Mexican lawyer, scientist and liberal politician.
They were meant to replace religious vows at a time when Mexican liberals were stripping away the Roman Catholic Church’s control over much of the country’s political, social and economic life.
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