Marianismo
Evelyn Stevens' essay was very significant to this area of study. However, since its publication, her argument has been debated by other researchers and critics. Although her argument addresses marianismo in Latin America at large, many of the sources she uses mainly focus on Mexican culture, thus severely limiting her frame of reference. Also, she is criticized for implying that, despite other differences among various socioeconomic classes, the ideal woman's characteristics are ultimately the same across social classes. Her critics claim Stevens ignores socioeconomic factors, saying "her description of women as altruistic, selfless, passive, [and] morally pure" is inadequate. There have been some responses in the literature to the concept of marianismo that assert that its model of/for women's behavior is very class-based. In other words, the idea that men do all the hard work, while women remain idle, on a pedestal, is a life that rarely exists, particularly for the peasant, poor and working class women that make up the majority of Latin America women. As Gil and Vazquez remind us, "most of her [Stevens's] data came from middle class Mexican women".
Mariano
Mariano, as a surname, is of Italian, Spanish and Portuguese origin from the personal name "Mariano", from the Latin family name "Marianus" (a derivative of the ancient personal name "Marius", of Etruscan origin). In the early Christian era it came to be taken as an adjective derived from "Maria", and was associated with the cult of the Virgin Mary. It was borne by various early saints, including a 3rd-century martyr in Numibia and a 5th-century hermit of Berry, France. It is also a Sephardic Jewish surname derived from the term Merano. The term, which is frequently derived from the New Testament phrase "maran atha" ("our Lord hath come"), denotes in Spanish "damned," "accursed," "banned"; also "hog," and in Portuguese it is used as an opprobrious epithet of the Jews because they do not eat pork. The name was applied to the Spanish Jews who, through compulsion or for form's sake, became converted to Christianity in consequence of the cruel persecutions of 1391 and of Vicente Ferrer's missionary sermons. These "conversos" (converts), as they were called in Spain, or "Christãos Novos" (Neo-Christians) in Portugal, or "Chuetas" in the Balearic Isles, or "Anusim" (constrained) in Hebrew, numbered more than 100,000. With them the history of the Pyrenean Peninsula, and indirectly that of the Jews also, enters upon a new phase; for they were the immediate cause both of the introduction of the Inquisition into Spain and of the expulsion of the Jews from that country.