Character Analysis
The "Other" Woman
Screw being good girls, we want to be like Maria Alejandrina Cervantes.
There is only one woman in this whole book that is consistently described in a way that makes her equal to the men in the novel: the Maria Alejandrina Cervantes:
Maria Alejandrina Cervantes, about whom we used to say that she would go to sleep only once and that would be to die, was the most elegant and the most tender woman I have ever known, and the most serviceable in bed, but she was also the strictest. (3.47)
Men do not teach her, she teaches them. Her virginity is not taken; she takes men's virginity. Her honor can't be removed by something as simple as sex. She is also the only woman in the whole book seems to actually be loved by someone, and not just part of a marriage of convenience.
Considering how much importance this town places on virginity and sex, you might be surprised that the woman with all of these positive attributes is a prostitute—but it's also no coincidence. A prostitute does not have to follow the same rules as the rest of the women in this patriarchal society. She doesn't have to maintain her virginity or do whatever men want her to. She is not dependent on men to take care of her; she makes her own money and has her own job. In other words, she's an independent woman.
Even though Maria Alejandrina Cervantes is outside of the system, she still reinforces its double standard. While men lose their virginity with no hoopla, someone has to die if a woman loses hers at the wrong time. While women are expected to be completely faithful to their husbands, even the narrator—who has just proposed to his fiancé—is going to see prostitutes several times a day. How fair is that?