FROM THE CHAIN OF AFFECTION TO DESFILIATION: HOUSE SERVANTS IN SÃO PAULO IN THE 1920S

Abstract

This article analyzes the usage and abuses made of two legal devices present in the Portuguese and Brazilian legislations for more than three centuries – Legal Guardianship and Soldada’s Contract – the legal support of a practice that has endured for a long time in Brazil, the practice of raising children of other families as house servants. This research’s hypothesis is that the public-private network of servanthood that was formed in Brazil reaching back to colonial times finds itself in crisis during the 20s, because it was no longer capable of fulfilling its role of assimilating poor and working children as it had done in the past, and of meeting the expectations of the immigrant families who mobilized the workforce of all its members and expected more from protecting families than solely shelter and food as compensation for the work of their children.