Maggiem22's List: Aymara Family Structure, Marriage and Kinship

• Traditionally, the basis of Aymara social organization was the AYLLU, a kinship unit generally identified with the lineage.
• Perhaps as the result of more frequent personal contacts made in an urban setting, moieties seemed to possess a greater solidarity than an AYLLU. Competition between moieties at fiestas often led to inter-moiety brawl

• Kinship terminology, which is a modified Hawaiian type, gives equal importance to relatives of both lines of descent
• Cousins on either side are called by the same terms as brothers and sisters
• Marriage restrictions ideally extend out to second cousins. Those related by COMPADRAZGO are also prohibited from marriage
• The traditional form of marriage, where the parents made elaborate arrangements, has declined, while elopements have become the most common form. Monogamy is the rule, but there is a sort of trial marriage period, during which the couple live together before going through the formal wedding ceremony
• Marriage marks adulthood; after marriage a man can participate in the decision-making processes of the community. Infanticide and abortion are frowned upon, but practiced
• Divorce is relatively easy. The wife returns with the younger children either to her father's or brother's home. The older children remain with their father. The most common causes of divorce are the wife's infidelity or sterility

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     When the marriage has been settled on, the parents of both parties spread the news to their relatives and friends, who, once advised, feel obliged to cooperate in the establishment of the new home and to help them to get it together.
• The new couple live in the house of the man's parents for one year, at the end of which period they proceed to build their own home.
• at first the lovess begin their conjugal life, but by simple and mutual consent; this is considered as a trial marriage or servinacuy
• Approximately two years later they proceed to define their situation; they can separate and do it with mutual respect and harmony; she takes the children and they divide their goods justly.
• Should they decide to carry on together, they take steps to legalize the situation by a civil and religious marriage
• The marriage ceremony assumes great importance during the festivities, to which all their economic resources are devoted. Relatives and friends, especially bachelors, contribute by means of ayni  , or mutual aid. They place their contributions in a bag and hand it to the bridegroom so that when they in their turn marry he may return double the amount.

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• Compi families expect their children to be quiet, hard-working, polite, humble, and controlled. Parents in turn are supposed to be loving, concerned, and protective. Parental love is shown by giving one's offspring food and nice clothes
• girls learn agricultural tasks such as planting, weeding and harvesting, cooking, weaving, spinning, and marketing from their mothers
• Fathers enlist the aid of their sons in working the fields, sewing by hand and by machine, knitting sweaters, and making nets
• They also fish along the shore with small hand net
• By far the child's most important economic contribution to the family's income is herding. Children begin to herd by the age of four or five
• Children rarely herd alone

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• We have depicted, then, a basic set of ties between a father, his sons and daughters, the wives of his sons and their children, and a number of other persons who either cannot establish a home of their own or are necessary to complete or replace ties which are either deficient or which have been severed.
• Alternatively, if all the children have established their own homes, if even the youngest son (or the son who marries last) has not remained at home, or when there are only daughters in the family, then the parent-child relationship may be re-established either by adopting a child -- frequently a grandson or granddaughter -- or by asking a son-in-law to establish uxorilocal residence.

• The pyramids also seem to show a slight distortion of the sex ratio in the younger ages, in favor of males. This might be related to the fact that the Aymara, though bilateral, nevertheless give males a higher status in general than females and prefer patrilocal residence. Given such values, male infants may naturally be mentioned with greater ease than female.

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     The reasons for this particular population structure are not at all clear. There is considerable indication of fairly late age at marriage. The periodic absence of the males because of extended trading journeys or occasional lengthy periods of labor in mines or urban industries may further explain the low birth rat

• The smallest most basic unit within the society is the nuclear family, composed of a monogamous couple and their offspring.  ^{1    Murdock ( 13  , p. 36) notes that “when the productive accomplichment of the two sexes is approximately equal, and a small unit is as efficient as a larger one, monogamy may be economicaily advantageous.”}    This family is closely tied to an extended family group, however, usually the husband's, but occasionally the wife's
• The lands themselves are ideally separated into equal parts, one for each male child and one for all the female children together. The female portion is then subdivided so that each daughter may have an equal share. This customarily leaves males with the largest holdings. However, in certain circumstances, such as one-child families, the female may well end up with more land than her intended spouse. In such cases, it is in the new couple's best interest to establish uxorilocal residence, and they do so.
• Kin terminology gives equal importance to relatives of both lines of descent. All cousins, on either side, are called by the same terms as   [Page 56]   brother and sister. Mother's brothers and father's brothers are equated terminologieally, as are father's sisters and mother's sisters.
• All relatives on the second aseending generation are equated with grandmother and grandfather, allowing, of course for differentiation according to sex. On the first descending generation, all are referred to by the same terminology as that used for one's own son and daughter.  ²

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• “Freeing their soul” is necessary because of the sins of this life (“Mas o menos sin librar su. . . que tiene pecados, que tiene pecados en esta vida”). Catholics without Catholic marriage are said to be unclear (“Cuando no son casados de la iglesia catolica pero siendo de la religion catolica dicen que no son limpios”). He commented (without my having questioned him) that walking at night (“andan en la noche”) means the same thing as walking in darkness

• The central social unit of the Aymara is the extended family. Typically,  a family will include parents, unmarried children, and grandparents in  one house, or in a small cluster of houses. Large families with as many  as seven or eight children are common. 

   

    There is a sharp division of labor within an Aymara household, but  women's work is not necessarily seen as less valuable. Planting,  in particular, is a women's job that is highly respected

• Women in Aymara society also have inheritance rights. Property owned by  women will be passed down from mother to daughter. This ensures that not  all land and property goes to the sons. 

   

    Marriage is a long process with many steps, such as inheritance feasts,  a planting ceremony, and the building of the house. Divorce is accepted  and is relatively simple.

• Marriage.    Most marriages derive from the choice of the young couple but are  regarded as an economic union with binding reciprocal obligations among  three households: those of the parents of the groom, the parents of the  bride, and the newlyweds. A marriage is entered through a series of  stages and wedding ceremonies, earlier mistakenly apprehended as  "trial marriages." Marriages are monogamous and divorce is  fairly easy.

• Domestic Unit.    The basic unit is the nuclear family with extended family networks for  cooperation. Nuclear families with separate households often live on the  same premises as their extended kin. Virilocal or neolocal residence is  typically practiced. 

   

      Inheritance.    Inheritance is traditionally bilateral (i.e., males and females inherit  property separately from their father and mother). The equal inheritance  rules, legalized in Bolivia in 1953, have sometimes led to extreme  splitting up of land, resulting in the bending of the rules in practice. 

   

      Socialization.    Children are regarded as complete human beings and are brought up with  guidance rather than with rebuke or force. They are treated with  respect, and, although seldom excluded from any situation, they are  taught to be quiet when grown-ups talk. 

• The Inca strengthened local Aymara dynasties as part of their imperial system and introduced new religious cults and myths, a greater variety of foods, and new art styles. The Spaniards introduced new domesticated animals and plants, plow agriculture, and iron tools. They suppressed native religious institutions but effected only a superficial conversion to Christianity. Today the Aymara maintain their beliefs in a multispirit world, have many categories of magicians, diviners, medicine men, and witches, but are Christian in their beliefs about the afterworld.
• y, consisting of a man and his brothers, their wives, sons, and unmarried daughters, living in a cluster of houses within a compound. This structure is changing as many Aymara seek wages in urban settings. The political unit is the ayllu, or comunidad, composed of several extended families. It has little resemblance to the aboriginal ayllu
• The basic social unit is the extended famil

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• One of the most critical effects of the weakening of kinship networks and community relationships is the isolation of the household unit. The separation of the nuclear family from a larger network of relationships has frequently been observed as   [Page 28]   a result of the influence of market economies on non-Western cultures--primarily the demands imposed by new forms of production. This influence is reinforced by political pressures and the imposition of Western ideologies of gender and family

• The Aymara and Quechua had a highly stable basic family unit. Marriage was the most significant social event in an individual's life. An elaborate series of rituals marked the highland marriages: courtship, formal betrothal, a number of different wedding ceremonies, the formal Roman Catholic marriage, the feast of the marriage godparents, the inheritance feast, the planting ritual, and the house roofing. The completion of the full series marked not just a new union of the couple and their families but the transition of the man and the woman to full adulthood in the community's eyes
• Although the Indian couple typically began living together slightly before the betrothal, the actual ceremonies could extend over several years. When they were finally completed, the couple had received the wherewithal to function as an autonomous household. The community had approved of their new social identity on numerous occasions. All that they received in the numerous ceremonies involved them in enough reciprocal obligations to last a lifetime.
• Kinship ties at all levels of Bolivian society remained so strong that those unrelated to one another often sought to establish bonds of ritual kinship through the set of relationships among a child, the child's parents, and his or her godparents, known as compadrazgo (see Glossary). In Hispanic and Indian traditions alike, persons related through compadrazgo-- called compadres--should manifest the highest regard and loyalty toward one another. Among Indians, in addition, sexual relations between compadres (and sometimes their relatives) were considered incestuous and strongly condemned. For many of the historically dominant whites, compadrazgo extended the bonds of kinship and formalized pre-existing ties of friendship. For Indians and cholos, compadrazgo represented one of the few relations of trust with members of the dominant ethnic groups.
• odparents were commonly selected at baptism and marriage. The compadres of baptism had well-defined ritual and economic obligations at the ceremony itself, as well as for the feast that followed. The relationship established was between the child's parents and the godparents. The reciprocal obligations linking the two couples continued beyond the occasion; indeed, the tie continued even if the godchild died. At marriage, compadrazgo established a four-way relationship linking the couple, the compadres, and each spouse's parents. As in baptism, the godparents became obliged to contribute to the marriage ceremonies in specific ritual and material ways. Compadres had a moral obligation to take an ongoing interest in the success of the union. If the marriage failed, they were blamed as well as the couple and the respective families.
• Compadrazgo ties often cut across the boundaries of class and ethnic groups. Indians and cholos could ask wealthy and influential mestizos or whites to serve as godparents. In asking couples of higher status, a person was establishing a link of patronage. The lower-status person expected to gain assistance in dealing with the authorities and to share, by reflection, in his or her status as compadre. In return, the influential person received occasional small gifts of produce and personal services and, equally important, a loyal follower. The choice of godparents was a sensitive barometer of ethnic loyalties and identification. Ambitious cholos, anxious for their children's advancement, would chose higher-status mestizos in the hope that the godparents could assist the child's education and caree
• ompadres could also be of equal status. In this case, an individual might ask distant kin, close friends, or neighbors to be godparents. The advantage in asking neighbors or kin was that the parents knew their reputation and standing in the community more thoroughly. Among compadres of equal status, individuals tried to match the economic resources of the couples involved, so that the reciprocal obligations and gifts between the two families would balance more evenly.

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