Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0277/02772.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 44KB | 694 lines

$Unique_ID{COW02772}
$Pretitle{246}
$Title{Panama
Chapter 2C.   Social Organization}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Dennis M. Hanratty, Sandra W. Meditz}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{migrants
population
percent
panama
urban
families
city
elite
class
land}
$Date{1987}
$Log{}
Country:     Panama
Book:        Panama, A Country Study
Author:      Dennis M. Hanratty, Sandra W. Meditz
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1987

Chapter 2C.   Social Organization

Family and Kin

     In the late 1980s, family and kin continued to play a central role in the
social lives of most Panamanians. An individual without kin to turn to for
protection and aid was in a precarious position. Loyalty to one's kin was an
ingrained value, and family ties were considered one's surest defense against
a hostile and uncertain world. This loyalty often outweighed that given to a
spouse; indeed, a man frequently gave priority to his responsibility to his
parents or siblings over that extended to his wife.

     Co-resident parents, children, and others living with them constituted
the basic unit of kinship. Family members relied upon each other for
assistance in major undertakings throughout life. Extended kin were important
as well. Grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins faithfully gathered to mark
birthdays and holidays together. Married children visited their parents
frequently--even daily. In some small remote villages and in some classes
(such as the elite), generations of intermarriage created a high measure of
interrelatedness, and almost everyone could trace a kinship link with everyone
else. Co-residence, nonetheless, remained the basis for the most enduring ties
an individual formed.

     A significant portion of all marriage unions were consensual rather than
contractual. A formal marriage ceremony often represented the culmination of a
life together for many mestizo and Antillean couples. It served as a mark of
economic success. Grown children sometimes promoted their parents' formal
marriage. Alternatively, a priest might encourage it for an elderly sick
person, as a prerequisite for receiving the rite of the anointing of the sick.

     The stability of consensual marriages varied considerably. In rural areas
where campesinos' livelihood was reasonably secure and population relatively
stable, social controls bolstered informal unions. Mestizos themselves made no
distinction between the obligations and duties of couples in a consensual or a
legal marriage. Children suffered little social stigma if their parents were
not legally married. If the union was unstable and there were children, the
paternal grandparents sometimes took in both mother and children. Or, a woman
might return to her mother's or her parents' household, leaving behind her
children so that she could work. Nevertheless, there were a significant number
of female- headed families, particularly in cities and among the poorest
segment of the population.

     Formally constituted legal marriage was the rule among the more
prosperous campesinos, cattle ranchers, the urban middle class, and the elite.
Marriage played a significant role for the elite in defining and maintaining
the family's status. A concern for genealogy, imputed racial purity, and
wealth were major considerations. Repeated intermarriage made the older elite
families into a broadly interrelated web of kin. As one upper-class wife
noted, ". . . no member of my family marries anyone whose greatgrandparents
were unknown to us."

     Men were expected to be sexually active outside of marriage. Keeping a
mistress was acceptable in virtually every class. Among the wealthier classes,
a man's relationship with his mistress could take on a quasi- formal,
permanent quality. An elite male could entertain his mistress on all but the
most formal social occasions, and he could expect to receive friends at the
apartment he had provided for her. Furthermore, he would recognize and support
the children she bore him.

     The ideal focus for a woman, by contrast, was home, family, and children.
Children were a woman's main goal and consolation in life. The tie between
mother and child was virtually sacrosanct, and filial love and respect deeply
held duties. Whatever her husband's extramarital activities, a woman's
fidelity had to be above reproach. An elite or middle-class woman derived
considerable solace from her status as a man's legal wife. Nevertheless,
middle-class and more educated women often found their traditional role and
the division of labor irksome, and were particularly offended by the diversion
of family funds into their husbands' pursuit of pleasure.

     Campesinos, too, divided social life into its properly male and female
spheres: "The man is in the fields, the woman is in the home." As a
corollary, men were "of the street" and able to visit at will. Women who
circulated too freely were likened to prostitutes; men who performed female
tasks were thought to be dominated by their wives.

     Childrearing practices reinforced the traditional male and female roles
and values to a greater or lesser degree among all classes. Boys were
permitted considerably more latitude and freedom than girls. Girls were
typically tightly supervised, their companions screened, and their activities
monitored.

     Because children were deeply desired, their birth was celebrated, and a
baptism was a major family event. The selection of godparents (padrinos) was
an important step that could have a pronounced influence on the child's
welfare and future. It resulted in a quasi-kinship relationship that carried
with it moral, ceremonial, and religious significance, and broadened family
ties of trust, loyalty, and support.

     Parents tried to choose for their children godparents whom they
respected, and trusted, and who were as high on the social scale as possible.
A certain degree of formality and ceremony was expected of godparents in
social interaction, but the bonds primarily involved protective responsibility
and a willingness to render assistance in adversity.

     Campesinos followed two distinct patterns in choosing godparents. The
parents might choose a person of wealth, power, or prestige, thereby gaining
an influential protector. Such a contact could give a parent the confidence to
launch a child into an alien outside world, in which he or she might have
little personal status or experience. By contrast, among some campesinos there
was strong informal pressure in the opposite direction. They believed it was
inappropriate to ask someone of higher economic status to act as a godparent,
so they sought out instead a relative or friend, especially one who lived in
the same area. The choice here tended to reinforce existing social ties and
loyalties.

Rural Society

     The opening of the trans-isthmian railroad in the mid-nineteenth century
and the Panama Canal early in the twentieth century reinforced the
distinctions basic to Panamanian society: the dichotomies between rural and
urban inhabitants; small-scale, mixed agriculturalists and larger cattle
ranchers; the landless and landowners; and mestizos and whites. By the late
1980s, urban-based control over rural lands was considerable. The metropolitan
elite not only had substantial rural landholdings, but monopolized pivotal
political posts as well. Wealthy city dwellers also controlled food-processing
and transportation facilities. For the bulk of the mestizo peasants, though,
limited population and ample reserves of land made elite control of resources
less onerous than it might have been, as did the fact that urban elites tended
to view their holdings less as agricultural enterprises than as estates in the
countryside.

     Traditional slash-and-burn agriculture was the basis of rural livelihood
for most human settlement on the isthmus (see Agriculture, ch. 3). All
able-bodied household members were expected to contribute to the family's
support. The peasant family was a single production and consumption u