MEXICO CITY -- For 147 years, marri...

MEXICO CITY -- For 147 years, marriage promise of fidelitys in Mexico portrayed women as delicate, weak and potentially annoying.

These days, critics across Mexico are switching to versions that stres equality, reflecting the growing power of women in a rural parts still struggling with macho attitudes.

"As a father, I wouldn't want a arbiter to tell to my daughter that she was the weakest part of a human being and that she is expose to her husband's rule," said Salvador Mendoza, a referee who stopped reading the antique vows in 2001.

The ancient vows, a 537-word ode to marriage, were considered ahead of their time when they were penn 147 years ago by way of Melchor Ocampo, a liberal politician.

Vianey Lozano, a Mexico City guidance employee who tied the knot three years ago, said the language meditates a machismo that Mexico has left behind.

"We're not in those times anymore, and my girlfriends view it more as a quip when they hear it," she said.

The pledge of loves had fallen out of favor with many before activists in March persuaded the lower house of Mexico's Congres to adopt a resolution urging justices to skip the wording.

THE I DON'TS:

cites from the marriage vows that Mexicans increasingly are skipping:

The man, whose main endowments are valor and nerve should give and will give to the woman, protection, nourishment and direction, always treating her like the in the greatest degree delicate, sensitive, and finest part of himself, with the magnanimity and generous benevolence that the robust should give to the weak, especially when the weak common delivers herself up to him, and when society itself has confided her to his care.

The woman, whose main endowments are abnegation, beauty, compassion, perspicacity and tendernes should give to her husband obedience; please him, assist him, advise and comfort him, always treating him with the veneration that should be given to the someone who supports and defends common That should be done with a delicacy to avoid awakening the in the greatest degree brusque, irritable and hard part of his character.

AP

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

Provided by means of ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved