>>17900351
cont:

Conversely, Mexica society was highly classist: Commoners had little to no social mobility outside of via military commendations (which too was restricted over time) and MAYBE merchantry, with there being limits on what you could own (or at least publicly display) in terms of clothing goods etc based on class, alongside lesser rights. Even minor crimes could see you being executed, and they were also pretty prudish when it came to sex and nudiity, and women had less rights then men (though not to the same extent as in much of Europe at the time), and this is even in comparison to other Mesoamerican civilizations and even other Nahua/"culturally Aztec" cities, where we know commoners had some access to elite goods, queens could wield as much power as kings in some cases etc (or, perhaps it's more that the amount of attention Spain paid to the Mexica meant that our sources lean into framing them as more elitist and socially conservative because it would appeal more to Spanish views even if they weren't extra so)

And they did, in fact, sacrifice likely thousands of people a year (maybe as little as a few hundred, or as much as around 10,000), and did do ritual cannibalize some of their remains. Victims would mostly be captured enemy soldiers, but non-combatant slaves could be victims as well, as could children or disabled people be "volunteered" for sacrifices by their caretakers (tho often disabled people given away this way served ritual roles as seers or advisors, and would have been cared in that job prior to or instead of being sacrificed).

Lastly, even if they weren't especially administratively onerous rulers over other cities, towns, etc, they were still militaristic expansionists who made annual conquests the backbone of their political power/image and economics, and glorified being a soldier as the ideal that all boys and men should strive for (even if religious piety, intellectualism and being cultured, etc was also valued)

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