Family Dynamics in a Mexican Village.

Two of the objectives of the early phase of this work were to demonstrate the important role of personal and social factors, in addition to cultural ones, in nuclear family life, and to show the wide range of individual personality and family types within a single peasant community. In this paper, the author compares the internal structure, psychodynamics, and personality development in two families. The author will also attempt to relate the psychodynamics of these two families to the broader social, economic, and political trends in the village and nation, in order to show the differential effects of the Mexican Revolution of 1910-20 upon these families. The Rojas family is one of thirty-seven better-to-do landowning families in the upper economic group of the village. Only 4 per cent of the families in the village are in this category. The Martinez is one of the poorer landless families of the lowest economic group which constitutes about 80 per cent of all families. Although the two families are now at different levels on the economic ladder, it is important to remember that at the time they set up independent households they were both poor.