88
194 1 , 1953). Kin networlcs are extended bilaterally through families of both parents in a horizontal and vertical fashion with the exception of a distinguishing kinship terminology of cousins by sex and age.
The family is structured through blood relatives with the point of reference being the birth place of the individual. Agnatic households
are
the most common fonn of extended or joint households. Usually a son and his wife will live withinhis
father's house until theyare
ready to build their own. When married, youngest sonswill stay in the home of their parents and usually inherit that home. With regard
to the development cycle of the domestic unit a woman, for instance, may have begun life in a nuclear family, grown up in a joint or extended family, married into another extended family, moved into her own home as part of a nuclear family and, with the marriage of her own children, become part of an extended family again.While most Mexican ethnographies give a similar view on what can be termed the peasant family
unit.
George Foster offers a very clear example of the structure of the traditional Mexican family in his ethnography of Tzintzuntzan {1967). Among the 376 families who lived in the community, he foundthat 333 were structured as nuclear families and 43 consisted of single persons. Those single
individuals, along with the children of the 333 families lived in " ... varying degrees of dependency on one another" (Foster 1967 p.56). 100 of these couples lived in44
households which means that they belonged to joint or extended families. These families were composed of two couples (parents and married son), ofthree
couples (parents and two married children), of parents and married daughters (two cases), and a few of distant single relatives such as elderly or widowed aunts and uncles. Within these extended families there was a varying degree of dependency, so that while some only occupied a plot of land, others would share household duties and expenses.In
looking at peasant families who have moved to an urban community urbanised. Oscar Lewis tells us:" ... we must distinguish much more carefully between the existence of the extended family as a residence unit and as a social group. In Mexico, the extended family is important as a social group
in both rural
andurban areas
, where the nuclear family predominates as the residenceunit
.. the persistence of extended family bonds seemscompatible with urban life and increased industrialisation."
(Oscar
Lewis 1973 p. 134)Butterworth reafftnns this view of family solidarity in his study of migrants to Mexico City. Butterworth states that "Family ties appear to remain strong as they were in Tilantongo, and perhaps even stronger." (Butterworth 1970 p. 106). This conclusion contradicts the stereotyped idea of family bonds weakening with urbanisation.
The essential structure of the household as a bilateral kinship system centered upon a nuclear family has not changed in the move from rural to urban areas. However, this is not to say that the peasant
community is totally reproduced in the urban context. Because of the nature of economic life in the urban environment, many transformations to the bilateral family have taken place. Slum-dwellers have moved a step further into the city; they inhabit single rooms and since they rarely have land their agricultural ties are thus broken.
Consider Butterworth's characterisation of slum-based (rather than squatter) families:
1 .
Close residence among kin i s not always possible or i f it does occur, will be created within apartments of avecindad
(slum) or a shanty town and not on a family "plot of land".2.
Urban families also exhibit more female-centered families and families which emphasise mother's extended kin. Women's work outside of the home contributes to this.3.
The system of fictive kinship(compadrazgo)
is used in urban areas to extend family networks on a much larger scale than they are in the village.4.
The nature of the extended family is also changed. For instance, younger siblings may come to live with an older brother or sister in the city and are supported by this person while he or she is educated or can begin work in the city. Often this is not a close blood relation but a distant cousin or godparent The extended family then is used as a stepping stone to gain a foothold in the city, in the same way that parents help newly married couples build their own household in the country (Butterworth1970).
While some squatter families share certain aspects of these characterisations, squatter settlements are much more expressly rural while, by necessity, distinctly urban in economic character. This preserves traditional behaviour in some areas of kinship and economic practice while also paving the way for other 'more economic' behaviour of the successful migrant. Those households can be differentiated from the family structure of inner city slums by the fact that female-centered households are nearly as rare as they are in rural villages. As well, squatters may very often take over a large block of land in order that the larger family may live as close as in the village setting. Village kinship ties are extended rather than constrained. Cousins, who would not share houses in the village, (because this was unnecessary), and do not do so in slums, (because there is nowhere for them), do find a place in a cousin's house in the
squatter settlement. Economic necessity and the pressure of the city, coupled with a transformation of village kinship ties leads to a new social practice, and a new form of family structure.
When asked to describe the fam ilies and family relationships in Linda Vista, residents naturally described themselves. In doing so, their description was constructed from a combination of their ideal type of residence and the economic reality of their daily lives. The former is a statement of dispositions and the other a statement about economic resources. The ideal type of marriage and family that emerged from informants' responses resembles a stereotypical image: a couple united by romantic love and formal marriage ties, living in their own home, with their children. The husband is the head of the household and as such provides adequate income for the family. The wife is obedient and chaste. She is the family's caretaker and represents warmth and nurturance. As is often the case, reality presents a different view. Forty-seven percent of Colonia marriages were free union, and the overwhelming reason for forming such a union was pregnancy. Such de facto marriages in the Colonia, as in other squatter settlements, were stable and did not carry any negative connotation. Although a church (Catholic) wedding might be the ideal choice, the money needed for the service, clothes, flowers and the wedding feast was not available to most Colonia families. In addition, the local Catholic church would not marry a couple unless they had been properly baptised, had attended the marriage classes and were not known to be expecting a child. Because of the necessity of obtaining proper school certificates for children from their schools, parents were increasingly becoming legally married. It was not infrequent that couples who had been in a de facto relationship would legalise their bond when their children became of school age. During the research period, the Mexican Government was urging couples to become legally married. The campaign was helped by two new items of social policy: first, by withholding school certificates from children whose parents could not show their legal marriage contract, and second, by insisting that low-level factory workers have at least a school certificate for the first
6
years of primary school. In an attempt to 'tidy up' squatter life, the government thus sought to restrict steadyemployment opportunities to those who had school certificates, and who were products of legal families.
The most common reason for a man and a woman to live together was pregnancy, and economic security for the family unit. Their relationships were maintained over time through the economic productivity of the household. Men were·expected t0 bring in an adequate income for the household and it was by this criteria that men were viewed as being "manly" or not. Women did not conduct themselves so much along the lines of being obedient and quiet, but took a much more equal role in the household. They were expected to manage the household economy, using whatever monies their husbands brought in, as well as adding to the household income by developing their own business interests. In practice, men
were rarely able to provide for families o n their own; women were therefore rarely 'just in the home', but commonly produced economic resources themselves. Stereotypical conceptions inevitably fell prey to the economic contingencies of squatter life.
Nuclear households were normally monogamous, although some Colonia men did have other women outside of the Colonia. There was a double standard, for women were never expected to have interests in other men. The only men who were criticised for their liasons were those whose "first" family suffered because of their affairs. This was expressed quite clearly by Marta from Colonia Linda Vista, who said, "Mexican men are all pigs. All they want are more women, but they never take care of their children. They are pigs!" One of the wealthiest women in the Colonia, Berta, often complained that her
husband had another woman at the truck stop outside of town. Other Colonia women did not accept Berta's complaints and felt that she had a good life. Why? She and her twelve children lived in a brick and concrete house with a patio, sufficient beds, clothes and food for everyone, a kitchen equipped with a stove and a washing machine. It was economic security, not romantic love, that kept this household unit together.
To briefly summarise, squatter settlement families are young; they come primarily from villages and because of their youth and economic position, they have the most to gain by "owning" their land through living in a squatter settlement. This enables them to have their own house, to hope for a good education for their children and to seek job possibilities in the city. While many plans are in reality dreams, in terms of household structure, the nuclear family fits their economic purpose. The three forms of family unit, nuclear, matrifocal and extended, are now further elaborated to extend the analysis of this pattern of economic calculation.