The Great Western Ocean: The Land of Peru

[The hats] are straight and round on the sides and flat on the top, with a brim around the circumference. Women's upper garments are also short and narrow, and they do not wear short jackets original: 襦 (rú); a waist-length shirt or jacket. The author notes that these women lack this specific layer of traditional Chinese underclothing underneath. They wear voluminous skirts in eight or nine layers. Young women leave their chests exposed this likely refers to the low-cut décolletage fashionable in 17th-century European and colonial Spanish dress, while older women cover themselves.

When they go out, they must drape a wide, long cloth over their heads, which hangs down to their knees. The wealthy further use black gauze to cover their faces; the gauze is extremely fine and delicate. From a distance, it looks like clouds or smoke. Some of these veils are valued as high as twenty gold pieces. In their hands, they often carry and fiddle with strings of beads likely referring to rosaries; the wealthy have these made of pearls or diamonds. Both men and women wear leather shoes.

From the King down to the common people, there is no one who has two wives. Only after a wife dies may a man take another, and only after a husband dies may a woman remarry.

In all matters of marriage, the groom's family must first calculate the dowry original: 娤奩 (zhuānglián); the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings to her husband in marriage. Parents consider it a disgrace if their daughter cannot marry; to avoid this, they will not hesitate to exhaust the entire family's wealth [to provide a sufficient dowry]. Conversely, the man’s financial standing is not scrutinized, for it is expected that he will be compensated recoup his expenses by the bride’s family.

Marriage is not forbidden between people of the same surname a notable contrast to the strict "same-surname marriage" ban in Imperial China, and only biological siblings are prohibited from marrying. Regarding widows who remarry original: 再醮 (zàijiào); a formal term for a woman’s second marriage, even uncles and nephews may [intermarry]...