1. The Nahua calli of ancient Mexico: household, family, and gender
“It is simply untrue as far as we can yet tell that there was ever a time or place where the complex family was the universal background to the ordinary lives of ordinary people.” —Peter Laslett, Family & Household in Past Time, 1972

2. A neolithic, complex household from Ancient Mexico (1540): 13 people, 4 generations, 5 marital units
Simply an old widow
Female, 20 years old, not yet married
Married
Married
Married one year ago
Married head of household
Married
Married one year ago
Married
Male 10 years of age, not married

3. Competing theories of family history (regarding co-residence)
Evolutionary, 4 stages:
Foragers: co-residence not limited to family or kin
Neolithic, agriculturalists: compound multi-family
Ancient to early modern: complex, extended family
Modern: nuclear family
High mortality simplified family structures in the past (Peter Laslett, 1972): “It is simply untrue as far as we can yet tell that there was ever a time or place where the complex family was the universal background to the ordinary lives of ordinary people.”

4. Household system: joint, complex, or compound?
There once was a place, where the complex family, “the classical family of Western nostalgia,” was the rule.
Nahua agrarian villages, early 16th century universal early marriage (<13 years female) high mortality (e0 <20 years)
Household system: joint, complex, or compound?
Gender relations: parallelism & symmetry or hierarchy & subordination?

5. Source: The Book of Tributes S. L. Cline (1993)
Census listings made by Aztec scribes, writing in Nahuatl, according to prehispanic conventions (translated by Cline).

7. Museo de Antropología, Mexico City: “Here is the home of one named...”
…translated
…microdata
...transcribed

8. Nahua population and land register
Darkened faces = dead
Lines are used to connect kin rather than to separate households
Codex Santa María de Asunción, ~1550

9. Cemithualtin (those around a patio): the importance of kin
Nahua households (cemithualtin): “those who live in a house” “people who live in only one house” “those from a patio,” etc.
99% live with kin: 47% as spouse or children of head; 52% as extended kin of head.
1% have no kin ties with the head (3 orphans, 20 servants and 1 [Indian] slave).

10. Table 1. Explicit and inferred kin relationships with 19+ occurrences Huitzillan and Quauhchichinollan villages, circa 1540
Relationship Frequency (total n = 2,486)
child mother-in-law 40
spouse brother-in-law’s spouse 38
head sister-in-law
brother daughter-in-law
brother’s spouse 88 nephew 34
son-in-law brother-in-law’s child 33
brother-in-law sister’s child 33
sister mother
grandchild cousin 19
brother’s child niece

11. Household and family definitions
Household classes with only 1 conjugal family: nuclear: pa, ma, &/or child extended: some non-nuclear, unmarried kin
Household classifications for 2+ conjugal families: Joint - families connected by kin of same sex, under single head Complex - tangled, intricate, diverse, multiple Compound - fusion, blending or amalgam of parts; hierarchy

12. 5 conjugal families, 4 generations, 3 married brothers, 2 widows, 1 unmarried woman and a boy
Simply an old widow
Female, 20 years old, not yet married
Married
Married
Married one year ago
Married head of household
Married
Married one year ago
Married
Male 10 years of age, not married

13. Table 2. Multiple households were the norm among rural Nahua
Household type Households (Percent) Individuals
Simple
No children
Children
Extended
Upward
Downward
Lateral
Combinations
Multiple
Upward
Downward
Lateral
Combinations
Polygamous
Total (n) ,486
Illegible (n)

14. Nahuatl sense of “joint” differs from classic definition of family historians: “Joint - families connected by kin of same sex, under single head”
“They pay the tribute jointly.”
“They all produce what they eat jointly”.
“Their wives make it jointly.”
“They just do their tribute together.”
“They just share the tribute.”
“They just do it jointly.”
“He just feeds them all as a unit.”
“All of them do the tribute jointly.”
“They just produce his tribute jointly.”

15. The different houses Sahagún, Códice Florentino, ~1580
Icnocalli (casa humilde) humble house
Coloti calli (choça) hut or hovel
Totecujo calli (hermita) hermitage
Xacalli (casa paxija) Straw house
Çaça ie xacalli (choça) another kind of hut
Sahagún, Códice Florentino, ~1580

16. Colotic calli: “It means it is unpretentious, a lowly house.”
Commoner’s house (choça o cabaña)
14 meters square
Sahagún, Códice Florentino, ~1580

17. Sahagún, Códice Florentino, ~1580
Icnocalli (casa humilde) “the unpretentious house, or the house of the humble or…the poor.”
Sahagún, Códice Florentino, ~1580

18. Excavated residences “those of one patio…”
M.E. Smith, Archaeological Research (1992)

19. “those of one patio…” note grouped ground-level houses
M.E. Smith, Archaeological Research (1992)

20. Table 3a. Headship designation by frequency of occurrence
Table 3a. Headship designation by frequency of occurrence. District identities of households and head
freq Key Explanation
165 H “Here is the home of ...”; “Here is ....'s home.”
47 R “Here is the householder named ...”
39 S “Here is the home of some people...” “ The household head is named...” or “The head of the household is named...” or “The householder is named...”
25 T “The tribute payer is named...”
20 . illegible
6 m migrant (“Here are some people who...came from afar”)
6 G “one who governs” (tlatoani); “one named ... is in charge”
1 b “one who belongs to the tlatoani”
1 g “Here is the one who guards things for the tlatoani”
1 n “Here is a nephew...”
2 C “Here is a tribute collector...”; “...tribute boss”
1 a “Here is a goodly maiden...”

21. Table 3b. Headship designation by order of appearance in district:
“Here is an altepetl named Huitzillan” (H1-H41):
GbH.HHHHHH.HHH.HHH.HHHHHHHmHmH.HHHHm.HHHH
Quauhchichinollan people (Q1-Q66):
GgRSSSSSSSSTSSSSSHHHHHSSSSRSSSSSSSHSTTTTSSTT.TTTTTT.TTTTTTTT.T.TTT
District illegible (Q67-Q135):
GHRRRRRHHRR.RRRRRR.RRRHHRRRRRRRR.RSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHn.HHHH.mHHHHHHHHH
Tlacochcalco (H#1-H#18):
HHHHHHHHHHCHHHHHHH
Coloteopan (H#19-H #35):
GHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
District illegible (H#36-H#62):
GHHHHHHHHHHH.HHHHHmHHHH.HHm
Xanyacac (H#63-H#72):
CHHHHHHHH
...cenhuitzco (H#73-H#139):
SSSSRRRRRRRRRRRRR.RRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH.HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.HHHHHHa
Key: Here is... H - Home R - Householder S - Some people; household head T - Tribute payer m - migrant

22. Gender relations: parallelism & symmetry or hierarchy & subordination?
Situs: Tenochitlan (Mex. City) or the countryside?
Parallelism, symmetry and complementarity with less hierarchy?
Or patriarchy: subordination, domination, and submission?
Evidence:
Widows, “just a little old woman”.
Married women in the household (Table 4).

23. Household H-38: 9 people, 3 generations, 2 widows
Married
Widow 4 years ago
Widow 10 years ago
Married
Single 15 years old
Married household head
Married
Girl 1 year old
Boy 7 years old

24. Table 4. Position of married individuals in rural Nahua households was strongly structured by gender
Relationship Male Female
Head
Spouse
Son/daughter
Other kin:
Brother/sister
Brother/sister-in-law*
Son/daughter in law
Brother/sister-in-law’s spouse
Father/mother
Father/mother-in-law
Other
Not related:
Total married (includes 2nd wives)

25. Rules of household headship (inferred), the 3Ms:
1. Male (311 of 315 households)
2. Married (97%) or recently widowed (3%).
3. Most sons resident (or the eldest son resident).

26. The Codex Mendoza: life at age 13 and 14 years
Boys
Girls
13:
14:
married
unmarried

27. Marriage (at 15)
15:

28. Child Brides and Patriarchy in Ancient Mexico
Codex Mendoza, 1540

29. 1540 vs 1990 Persistence of Mexico “profundo”?
Pre-hispanic survivals?
Virilocal stem families?
Residence around the paternal home?
Or transformations?
The world Mexico has lost: extended families are now rare
But family and kin ties remain important

30. 1540: 4 lateral extensions, Only 1 complete conjugal family 3 incomplete (2 widows+children)
Widow this year
Single Male 20 years old
Married head of the household
Married
Male, 8 years old
Girl, 1 year old
Boy born this year
Married
Male, single 10 years old
Male, already dead
Married three years ago
Widow, 10 years ago
Female, single 15 years old

31. Married head of the household 50 years old
1990, 450 years later: An example of a patrilateral household from rural Morelos (5 conjugal unions)
Married head of the household 50 years old
Married48 years old
Son 15 years old
Daughter 10 years old
Son 22, free union
Daughter 22, free union
Daughter 14, free union
21, free union
25 free union
Unión libre, 25 años
29 free union
Daughter 5 years old
Son, 2 years old
Daughtermonths of age
Daughter 2 years old
19, free union
16 free union
(not kin)

32. Table 5. Household Composition in Rural Morelos, 1540 and 1990, and in the Federal Republic of Mexico, 1990
Rural Morelos Republic
Relation to Head % % %
Head
Spouse
Son or Daughter
Other kin
Not related
Total %
N (sample size) 2,503 1, ,981

33. Conclusions
1. Nahua households were large (ave. = 8) and complex (75% contained two or more conjugal families)
2. Mortality, rather than braking, accelerated the formation of complex families.
3. Of greater importance than mortality were social constraints: Nahua offspring formed new households after the birth of a child, not simply with marriage.

34. Conclusions, social flexibility:
1. Marriage norms and family forms are social constructions and are highly plastic, even in ancient Mexico.
2. Marriage age (including informal unions) has increased greatly over the centuries, from as little as 13 years in rural “Morelos” five centuries ago to as much as 22 years by 1930, and 24 by 1990.
3. Likewise, complex families have declined from 75% to 15% in 1930, and 6% in 1990.

35. End

36. Museo de Antropología, Mexico City: “Here is the home of one named...”
…translated
…microdata
...transcribed

37. Table 1. Explicit and inferred kin relationships with 19+ occurrences Huitzillan and Quauhchichinollan villages, circa 1540
Relationship Frequency (total n = 2,486)
child mother-in-law 40
spouse brother-in-law’s spouse 38
head sister-in-law
brother daughter-in-law
brother’s spouse 88 nephew 34
son-in-law brother-in-law’s child 33
brother-in-law sister’s child 33
sister mother
grandchild cousin 19
brother’s child niece

38. Table 2. Multiple households were the norm among rural Nahua
Household type Households (Percent) Individuals
Simple
No children
Children
Extended
Upward
Downward
Lateral
Combinations
Multiple
Upward
Downward
Lateral
Combinations
Polygamous
Total (n) ,486
Illegible (n)

39. Table 3a. Headship designation by frequency of occurrence
Table 3a. Headship designation by frequency of occurrence. District identities of households and head
freq Key Explanation
165 H “Here is the home of ...”; “Here is ....'s home.”
47 R “Here is the householder named ...”
39 S “Here is the home of some people...” “ The household head is named...” or “The head of the household is named...” or “The householder is named...”
25 T “The tribute payer is named...”
20 . illegible
6 m migrant (“Here are some people who...came from afar”)
6 G “one who governs” (tlatoani); “one named ... is in charge”
1 b “one who belongs to the tlatoani”
1 g “Here is the one who guards things for the tlatoani”
1 n “Here is a nephew...”
2 C “Here is a tribute collector...”; “...tribute boss”
1 a “Here is a goodly maiden...”

40. Table 4. Position of married individuals in rural Nahua households was strongly structured by gender
Relationship Male Female
Head
Spouse
Son/daughter
Other kin:
Brother/sister
Brother/sister-in-law*
Son/daughter in law
Brother/sister-in-law’s spouse
Father/mother
Father/mother-in-law
Other
Not related:
Total married (includes 2nd wives)

41. Table 5. Household Composition in Rural Morelos, 1540 and 1990, and in the Federal Republic of Mexico, 1990
Rural Morelos Republic
Relation to Head % % %
Head
Spouse
Son or Daughter
Other kin
Not related
Total %
N (sample size) 2,503 1, ,981