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| Abstract. | The Nahua (Aztec) of ancient Mexico lived in large, multiple family households (calli). High mortality was no obstacle to household complexity for the Nahua, whose life expectancy was probably worse than any seen in Europe since the Black Death. Patriarchy, child marriage and a system of joint-compound bilateral co-residence gave rise to more complex households than even the "classical family of Western nostalgia." The subordination of women to male patriarchs was extensive. Most girls were married (cohabiting) before the age of puberty. Childless couples rarely attained headship. Neither polygamy nor abandonment was widespread, but their significance for gender oppression should not be denied. Widowhood offered new opportunities for companionship, but only for men. For widows, remarriage was infrequent; subordination to a male relative was almost inevitable. In modern Mexico, few remnants of this pre-Hispanic household system remain. According to the 1990 census, fewer than 10% of Mexicans live as extended kin or as non-relatives, even in rural Morelos where four centuries ago the compound family was common. The few modern examples of multiple family households tend to be Hispanic-like virilocal, patrilineal stem families. |