Román de Núñez, Soledad (1835–1924)

views updated

Román de Núñez, Soledad (1835–1924)

Soledad Román de Núñez (b. 6 October 1835; d. 19 October 1924), second wife of Colombian president Rafael Núñez. Román became a controversial figure in strongly Catholic Colombia because she married Núñez in a civil ceremony in 1877 while his first wife was still alive. She is also believed to have influenced his political opinions.

A native of Cartagena like Núñez, Román was the daughter of a prominent pharmacist. She became acquainted with Núñez as a girl and renewed the friendship upon his return to Colombia in 1874 after a long absence abroad. Because Núñez was divorced from Dolores Gallego, whom he had wed in a Catholic ceremony in 1851, Catholics could not regard his marriage to Román as valid, and some women boycotted her when she traveled to Bogotá as first lady in 1884. After Gallego's death in 1889, she and Núñez were remarried in a religious ceremony. A staunch Conservative, Román is credited with encouraging Núñez, a Liberal, to move toward an accommodation with the Conservative Party.

See alsoNúñez Moledo, Rafael .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Juan Pablo Llinás, Soledad Román (1986).

Helen Delpar, "Soledad Román de Núñez: A President's Wife," in The Human Tradition in Latin America: The Nineteenth Century, edited by Judith Ewell and William H. Beezeley (1989), pp. 128-140.