Alvarez's family situation reveals surprising complexities. Conversations between Alvarez and his "son" "Lucio," and between "daughter" "Posthumia" and the family servant Bobadilla, disclose two masquerades: the "Lucio" who won his father's pardon in battle is actually Alvarez's daughter Clara, who has been raised as a boy and has developed into a formidable warrior; and "Posthumia" is the real Lucio. Eugenia, left behind by her husband, concealed Lucio's gender to protect him from the vengeance of "Vitelli and his faction," and raised the boy as a girl. Now that the disguises are no longer necessary, the parents expect their children to accept their "natural" and socially appropriate roles as male and female; but both Lucio and Clara resist the change and cling to their long-familiar gender guises.