Patterns of domestic life in colonial Mexico: views from the households.

The author proposes new directions for the study of family life in colonial Mexico. "The goal was to present an alternative perspective for discussing patterns of domestic life in colonial Latin America and to illustrate how use of the life-course perspective improves on the more static, conventional Laslett approach.... Statistically based examinations of domestic life-course patterns, when combined with information about the economic, legal, and emotive aspects of families, can bring us closer to understanding social dynamics and everyday life in Mexico's past."