Residence Rules and Ultimogeniture in Tlaxcala and Mesoamerica

Abstract

The rise of wage labor in rural Tlaxcala, Mexico, created a shorter period of initial virilocal residence and an earlier age at marriage. Along with declining infant mortality rates, these factors led to a rapid increase in population, a larger mean household size, and a higher proportion of extended family domestic groups. But the developmental cycle of domestic groups cannot be explained in economic terms alone. The existence throughout Mesoamerica of the same developmental cycle, characterized by initial virilocal residence and culminating in male ultimogeniture, is a defining trait of the cultural area. (Mesoamerica, domestic residence, ultimogeniture, industrialization) Nearly two decades have passed since Nutini (1976:3) pointed out the paucity and incompleteness of material suitable for comparative purposes on the topics of kinship and the family in Mesoamerica. Little has changed since then. With the exception of the household, none of the aspects of marriage and family structure cited by Nutini (what he terms the nonresidential extended family, nuclear and extended families, marriage regulation, and residence) has been the principal object of study, and in most cases these aspects have been practically ignored in ethnographies and in other works in which there is at least some mention of domestic groups in the area (see Nutini 1968:352-71). In fact, with the exception of an interest in the domestic group as an economic unit by Mexican anthropologists in the 1970s, inspired by Chayanov (e.g., Gonzalez Martinez 1992), Nutini's call for lines of research in kinship and family in Mesoamerica (Nutini 1976:20-25) has scarcely been heeded. One of the main reasons for the lack of information on these topics is the failure of anthropologists to use clear concepts in these areas, particularly in the developmental cycle of domestic groups. The result has been that anthropologists have been able to see only the parts, not the whole. Consequently, we find studies with data on the proportion of extended to nuclear families, but rarely do we find an attempt to view the extended family as one of several possible phases in the developmental cycle of domestic groups. Despite Buchler and Selby's (1968:53) assertion that the use of the concept of the developmental cycle of domestic groups had become generalized in household studies, a review of the literature cited by Nutini and later works shows only a few in which the concept is applied to its full methodological potential. This article describes the developmental cycle in Acxotla del Monte, Tlaxcala, and shows how changing proportions of extended families are meaningless when studying changes in social structure, unless seen within the context of the developmental cycle of domestic groups. It also reviews the literature from the area studied by Nutini (1968) and some more recent works. Despite the aforementioned limitations still prevalent in ethnography of the domestic group, there is enough evidence to piece together the existence of a single type of developmental cycle of domestic groups prevalent throughout the area. This cycle closely matches that found in Acxotla del Monte, as it is characterized by virilocal residence rules and runs its course as older sons marry, reside virilocally, and then set up separate households near the parental home. The cycle culminates in male ultimogeniture in the inheritance of the house in the replacement phase. As the system is so widespread in Mesoamerica, and crosses ethnic, linguistic, and ecological boundaries, a name for it is warranted. I propose that, following Fortes's (1958) concept of the developmental cycle, it be called the Mesoamerican developmental cycle of domestic groups, and that, following Hajnal (1983:65), the total configuration, including the residence rules common throughout Mesoamerica. …

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