Venezuela

Economic and political strategies of the family determine patterns of social organization (Hurtado 1993, 1995). The matrifocal phenomenon can be seen in the figure of the grandmother. As decisionmaker, her figure represents the principle of family reciprocity. The residence of the extended family is matrilocal, based on the grandmother's settlement. Low-income nuclear families live in or near the grandmother's household. Middle-class and wealthy families may reside elsewhere, but communicate with and visit the grandmother frequently, ensuring mutual help (Hurtado 1998). In one study in a Caracas shantytown, one-half of nuclear family groups of three related extended families dwelt in the grandmother's household (total 14), and another half (total 16) in the grand-mother's neighborhood (Hurtado 1995)

Reciprocal systems depend upon the economic forms within family groups according to family composition and life cycle. There is mother, husband, wife, and filial economics, for example, and each has its specific function. There is a central function for mutual help among nuclear families related by grandmother. The contributions from the others make active a sort of semi-clan.

Matrifocality does not necessarily mean that the father is physically absent. However, the husband represents a marginal figure in the family group, even when married by civil norm and eccesiastical ritual. The husband is a lover of mother and a possible begetter of children, but there is no father figure evident in the cultural pattern. "A drinker husband is not a problem; the problem is a wicked son. The marriage is above all the children," is the attitude typical of a wife in this pattern (Hurtado 1998).

Venezualan society is matrifocal. Mothers and grandmothers are emphasized as the stable figures and decision-makers in the family. NEIL RABINOWITZ/CORBIS

The Venezuelan family consists of a group of women and children. It is a family without conjugality, where women only need men to procreate. The mother is worshipped at the expense of the father. Within this excessive motherhood, fatherhood and conjugal relations occur only in ritual forms and fantasy. The mother-child relationship with its overprotecting nucleus is the paradigm.

To be a mother defines the paradigmatic relationship. Scholarly studies (Vethencourt 1974, 1995; Rísquez 1982; Moreno 1993, 1994; López 1980, 1993; Hurtado 1998, 1999), looking at sociological facts as well as symbol, characterize the mother figure according to a fundamental threefold shape, or three archetypal models: a mother is a begetter, a virgin, and a martyr. Data for these studies are obtained not by statistical methods but rather by qualitative methods—for example, large interviews, life stories, biographies, and fieldwork. Each part of this threefold shape is explained as follows:

1. The belief that a woman is a mother because she gives birth involves a cultural destiny that constitutes the begetter archetype. If the woman begets, she becomes respectable; otherwise the culture qualifies her as an embittered person. Motherhood is always emphasized. Pregnancy is welcomed with joy and celebrated by rubbing the future mother's belly. Ideally, a male child is expected for it reaffirms motherhood, even though a baby girl is desired. Part of this archetype of motherhood is a long period of breastfeeding. Samuel Hurtado (1998) has found that breastfeeding continues for one to two years (24 women), as long as the child wanted it (14 women), or until another baby is born (3 women). Any pediatric advice against this long period of breastfeeding is ignored under the intervention of the mother's mother (Torres 1996);
2. The virgin mother defines the second archetype. The grandmother is the virgin mother raising children she has not borne. The grandmother wants and seeks more for her grandchildren than for her own children. The mother-son structural axis continues in the grandmother-grandchild relationship. The grandmother develops a feeling of ownership over her grandchildren that are stronger than her daughter's. A mother that never becomes a grandmother does not fully and happily realize her motherhood. This is similar to the phenomenon of the woman who shows more devotion to an adopted child than to her biological offspring. This symbolic transformation is inherent in every woman because Venezuelan culture makes her a mother from the time of her conception. In this manner, girls and young ladies feel their fathers and baby brothers are their children;
3. From indulgence and abandonment emerges the third archetype: the martyr mother. Women radically despise men. The mother suffers because she has to let her son as a male leave her home. Husbands are almost an unnecessary burden. In the reciprocal husband-wife system, he is only a provider, whom society calls family father. If he abandons his wife but gives money to his children, he is not considered irresponsible. The passage to manhood is very hard, as it means that the young male will be removed from his mother's concern. A mother expects that her son will leave the home in search of amusement with other women, and yet never forgives him for being born male. The marital process has a similar logic. Separation means that a woman expels the man from the house. The woman, the symbol and reality of the home and in whose womb the families originate, remains with the house and everything inside, including children. The man departs in solitude without taking by any belongings.

Separation is not necessarily preceded by the interference of another woman. In spite of what they might say, Venezuelan women accept that the man has another woman. The explanation that is commonly offered is that another woman stood in their way—his mother, even though this may not be true.