A domineering, reclusive and ostentatiously pious widow in a small Spanish town keeps such close watch on her daughters that they are unable to have normal social lives. However, the eldest is allowed to become engaged to an unprincipled young man, primarily for the financial advantages it will bring the mother, Bernarda. Jealousy and envy ensues among the other daughters.
A group of people suffering from mental retardation, blindness and physical malformations work in a traveling circus.
In Guanajuato, a piano teacher delays her marriage to an engineer not to let her younger sisters alone. As he is love with her voice, he is mistaken for a sister whom he marries. The teacher then goes to the capital. There she becomes part of a family of young students, who believe she is the mistress of his father, so she suffers the scorn and reproach. Over the years the parents die and she renounces to the inheritance they leave her.
A high priest tries to force a young beauty to marry a pearl trader who is masquerading as the god Balu.