Hombre De Estado--Que Significa?

[Itinerantscribe]

Quisiera saber si alguien se a encontrado a alguna partida de bautismo donde se refiera al padre (desconocido) de un niño como hombre de estado? No se que significa. Gracias.

Saludos,
Maria Krane (Florida)

[Art]

That's interesting. My dictionary defines "hombre de estado" as "statesman". In this case could it man that the child was conceived with a traveling official?

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Eso es interesante. Mi diccionario define el término "hombre de estado" como "estadista". ¿En este caso podría ser que el niño fue concebido por un funcionario en viaje?

[Itinerantscribe]

Thanks for your reply.

[Bob]

I think the phrase could also have been used at one time to refer to a man of stature (class, rank, profession, or even to someone married to another), at least according to my grandfather's dictionary from over a half century ago. If so, these less rare designations seem more likely. Perhaps some of our friends in Asturias could shed more light on the matter.

[Itinerantscribe]

Hi Bob,
I figured that the literal translation had to be similar to statesman. However, I also thought it was a weird term (in my estimation). I had thought perhaps the priest forgot to fill in the remainder of the phrase and it was referring to hombre de estado casado o sacerdotal (such as a married man or even a priest)--YIKES! Thanks for your response! Great dictionary-----I wish I had my grandfather's dictionary!
Maria Krane

[Art]

Bob, could you type in here what the dictionary says? That's pretty interesting and it does seem like the priest may have been covering up something.

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Bob, ¿podrías escribir aquí lo que dice el diccionario? Es muy interesante y parece posible que el sacerdote estuviera sido encubrir algo.

[Bob]

Here's a comment that was posted on the AsturGen group:

alguna vez encontré una explicación que decia
hombre de estado: sacerdote o religioso y
señora de obligaciones: mujer casada
por si te sirven estos datos
aunque no tengo el documento donde lo
encontré.

[Itinerantscribe]

Thanks Bob. That sounds about right.
Regards,
Maria Krane

[Bob]

Art, there is no entry in the dictionary for the entire phrase, but "hombre" is obvious and among the meanings given for "estado" are "estate, class, rank; profession; status (single, married and widowed); state, nation, commonwealth; state, government...." The range of meaning would seem to cover my interpretation.

The dictionary is Appleton's Revised English-Spanish and Spanish-English Dictionary by Arturo Cuyas, fourth edition, Appleton Century Crofts, 1956. I find it very valuable not only because it was given to me by my grandfather, but because it usually provides a fairly broad range of meaning as they existed in the 1950s. I cannot recall a single instance in which my grandfather did not know the meaning of an English word, so he must have thought that I needed the dictionary for Spanish words far more than he did for English ones. He could translate English language articles into newspapers as fast as he could talk.

Because languages are living things and semantic ranges change over time, I'm going to look for another dictionary from 1900 or so.

[Art]

.... Because languages are living things and semantic ranges change over time, I'm going to look for another dictionary from 1900 or so.

That's a very good point!

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¡Eso es un punto muy bien hecho!

[Sad_Aspie]

Hi everyone!!! I read opinions from native Asturians were welcome, so I decided to give my opinion on the matter in case I might be of some help.

As far as I know, "hombre de Estado" was the Spanish for "civil servant" during late 19th and early 20th Century. At that time Spain was a highly centralised country, so there were far less civil servants than nowadays and -because of that- the profession had far more social prestige than today.

Finally, with the restauration of Democracy the whole system was changed, creating lots of new jobs of civil servants, not only for the Central Government but -essentially- for the new and powerful regional "Autonomous Communities". As the whole philosophy was changed, since that moment onwards "civil servants" became known as "funcionarios", which is the current name.

Thus, it's highly possible that the man in that document were a civil servant in the late 19th or early 20th Century, Itinerantscribe.

[Art]

Yep, your opinion is definitely welcome, Sad_Aspie! That's an interesting analysis and makes sense.

What gave civil servants their higher status? Did civil servants have more education than the usual person?

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¡Sí, valoramos tu opinion, Sad_Aspie! Es un análisis interesante y es razonable.

¿Qué explica la posición social más alta de los hombres de estado? ¿Eran más cultos los hombres de estado que los típicos?

[Sad_Aspie]

What gave civil servants their higher status? Did civil servants have more education than the usual person?

Art, you have to bear in mind that since the first days of Fernando VII -perhaps even earlier- Spain turned into a mess of a country. The first education law in Spain was Moyanos' Law in 1857, which stated that all children from 6 to 10 years had to attend elementary school: even after that law, more that 50% of all children still remained totally unschooled. Thus, it was really difficult to find anyone with University Education at those times, and those few who were lucky enough to have it ended up in the State Machinery, even though it was very reduced one compared to modern Spain, due to its nature as a Centralised State.

Apart from that, we also have to be aware of the fact that professions that today enter within the definition of civil servant such as teachers and doctors were NOT at the time (doctors were totally independent and teachers were hired by town councils). So, the scope of the category of "civil servant" was reduced mainly to diplomats, jurists and lawyers.

Of course the whole matter is much more complex, I just tried to briefly summarize it for the sake of clarity and concision.

[Sad_Aspie]

Art, it seems that at the end the priest had nothing to do in the whole business... though with Catholic priests you can never be 100% sure, they're always up to something!!!

[Art]

Thanks for the background, Sad_Aspie.

There's a movie or novel in this somewhere!

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Gracias por explicar los antecedentes, Sad_Aspie.

¡Hay una película o novela en alguna parte de esta historia!