unescorted. Lower class Ladina women who can't afford servants must leave the house, but their

travel is always restricted to "necessary" tasks, or those that satisfy a domestic responsibility. No

Ladina or Maya woman leaves her house for any reason other than attending church or another

scheduled social event or running errands, and any outing occurs only with the permission of the

male head of the household. In outlying Maya villages, it is not unusual to find women who have

never left the village; such women have never even traveled to the town of San Pedro Pinula,

much less to the department capital or another urban center. Though it may appear that Maya

women have more physical mobility than Ladina women, this mobility is still strictly supervised

by male or older female household members.

 The life cycle stage is the most important variable in a woman's ability to move freely and

unaccompanied. As Cominsky and Scrimshaw (1982) found, a woman's status improves with

age, resulting in an increase in authority and mobility. Older women who have been married for

a long period of time and have secured their reputation in the community are the only women

able to walk the streets freely with no one questioning their destination. Nonetheless, these

women always appear to have a purpose. An older Ladino woman, Rosalina, whose husband was

in the United States, was asked about her mobility:

 Q: Pero usted tiene suerte porque yo he visto otras mujeres que cuando se fue el esposo
 para los Estados salen menos, porque ya tienen miedo de los chismes y todo eso-

 R: Si pero, uno debe de privarse algo de eso tambien, pero para eso depend la persona,
 porque si a mi me conocen, me encuentran por alla, saben quien soy yo, saben quien soy
 yo. Eso siempre yo le digo a mi esposo, "mira, yo cuido mi persona, no cuido tu persona, "
 aunque tambien hay un desprestigio tambien en ello? Verdad? Pero yo cuido mi
 persona porque yo soy yo y tu persona es tu persona. Porque alfin y al cabo, yo no soy
 familiar tuya, tu no llevas mi sangre ni yo llevo la tuya. Entonces, a quin van a
 desprestigiar es mi persona? no la de el.

 Q: But you are lucky because I've seen other women who when their husband's left for the
 states, they went out less because they were afraid of gossip: