THE TIES THAT BIND - SOCIAL COHESION AND THE YUCATEC MAYA FAMILY

This analysis of unstudied census materials and Maya-language notarial records explores the nature of Maya familial organization and identit y in colonial Yucatan, Mexico. At the intersection of the two primary units of Maya society, the community and the patronym-group, existed t he extended family, which was formed through marriage alliances within largely endogamous communities between strictly exogamous patronym-gr oups, expressed as a multiunit patriarchal household of about ten memb ers, and given cohesion by community and patronym-group identities and by familiar participation in working and owning property. Marriages m ay have been later and separate newlywed households less common, than previously suggested.