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On one hand, while Credit Union officers can--in the name of the membership--reinforce social distinctions in Utila, they can just as easily facilitate class mobility. Lopreato describes a situation in the Italian village of Stefanaconi that is relevant to this point when he says that

. . . mobility has been made possible by the rapid conversion of relatively large remittances of money from emigrants into appropriate social symbols such as landed property and 'modern' dwellings (1962:184).

The remittance economy and Credit Union taken together are certainly important in terms of emigration that took place prior to World War II during the period when Utila's economy was at its worst. As pointed out above in Chapter IV, emigration from Utila is likely to have taken many of the people who formed an economic middle sector and thus left a vacuum between the relatively wealthy and the relatively poor. Subsequent to the remittance economy, the stay-at-home population was able to acquire the "appropriate social symbols," as Lopreato puts it, and enjoy a life style previously attainable only by those in upper and middle economic sectors. In this acquisition of symbols, the Credit Union has most definitely helped to recreate a middle sector in Utila, and actually shorten the time involved in the process. It may even have made it possible for some of the previously lower sector families to move to the top of the economic scale, a fact that may have much to do with attitudes towards Spaniards that I discuss below.

Caribbean social anthropology is replete with accounts (e.g., Smith 1957:66 et passim) of how people all the way from Guatemala and British Honduras to Guyana and the Caribbean islands accommodate to the absence of males from household units. The classic "matrifocal family" is the accommodation referred to, and insofar as the Caribbean island of Utila is concerned, is almost totally irrelevant. The notion that males are rather inconsequential to the economic and emotional well-being of household units, which is my understanding of the matrifocal family model, describes household organization for 5% or less of Utila's population⁴.

Household composition was in too great a state of flux during the research period (and, I suspect, during any given period of time) to make categorical statements about the "normal" Utilian household (which actually tends to go through cycles described below), but it seems to be the ideal for the household to be coterminous with a nuclear family unit. What may be confusing to a casual observer here is the fact that, for a variety of reasons (e.g., due to the lack of nursing homes, orphanages, and other institutions to house and care for certain categories of people), the nuclear family/household is necessarily more elastic than its counterpart in the United States. Thus, a Utilian household may, during that portion of the year when the males (or senior male) are absent on board ship, be composed of a woman up to age 45-50 or so, her single daughters (perhaps married ones as well), any grandchildren that might be around, any unmarried sons that might still be at home (too young for sea duty or the army perhaps), and any sons-in-law or other kin who happen to need housing. This configuration does not arise due to the purported worthlessness of males or their transience, but is due to logistic or other considerations.

Woman operate in their respective households as if the return of any absentee male were imminent; only by default do women perform the tasks ordinarily considered part of the male role. It appears from my own observations that women act as stewards for absentee males, and from both observation and interviews it can be asserted that it is the men who are ultimately responsible for their households and women simply stand in for them in their absence.

Women are not, by this analysis, to be viewed as ghost males who are in themselves inconsequential to Utilian society. The role of women in Utila (dealt with more fully below) is crucial to the maintenance of the system and to perpetuation of the remittance economy. The idea that women fill in for men, however, rather than supplant them, is what I wish to stress here, and is given support (as an example) by research done by Gail Smith on the effects of male absence from seafaring communities in Great Britain. It was her finding that "although the wives learned to cope [with problems of running a household all alone], they found it a strain having no one to turn to for moral support or to share these responsibilities. They gave them up to their husbands with great relief while he was on leave" (Smith 1975:8; emphasis added).

In order to illustrate some of the configurations that Utilian households can assume, a description of several "type" examples would be helpful (pseudonyms are used throughout). As noted, the ideal household appears to be one that consists in a single nuclear family, a representative of which is the household of Walter Williamson, Jr. "Wallie," not quite 50 years old at the time of the study, lives with his wife Leann (a Cooper by birth), and their five sons--ages six to sixteen--in a two story house in the Holland barrio. Wallie has been a fisherman all of his life, and still fishes with his sons in order to meet household needs for seafood. His main source of income has not been from fishing, however, but the merchant marine, which he entered during World War II. Aside from his home and the lot it sits on, Wallie owns plantation land out in the bush and is thus comfortably situated. He told me shortly before I left Utila that he wanted to build a new, better house on his town property and would, therefore, sign on for another six months at sea in order to accumulate the several thousand dollars necessary for the venture. During his absence, Leann would watch out for their sons and continue to bake coconut bread--her regular occupation--for sale in Utilian stores. She would receive monthly allotments from Wallie while he was gone, use as much as she needed for living expenses, and save the remainder.

While Wallie's household would probably not be confused as a matrifocal family in his absence, the household of Gustaf Aginuz might at first glance be taken as just such a unit due to the prevalence of adult--or almost adult--females. During the research period, Gustaf's household contained his wife, "Miss" Julia (age 45), and their three daughters Elaine (age twenty), Rose (age seventeen), and Molly (age fifteen). Also present were infant Horatio (Elaine's child) and an unidentified teenage male who helped with chores around the house. Miss Julia maintained a general store on the ground level of her two-story house, baked fresh coconut bread daily, and supervised the household while both her husband and son-in-law, Horatio Nelson, were at sea. Elaine's husband, Horatio, Sr., did not yet have a house for his own nuclear family; therefore, Elaine and son lived with Julia while her husband was on the ships--and fishing during his leave period, to get money for a home. Before the research period was ended Rose had married Ralph Trent, and her young bridegroom planned to ship out soon on his first voyage (at age nineteen he was already a year beyond the minimum age for merchant seamen) while she stayed with her mother, helping with the store and Elaine's baby, hoping to save money for her own home.

Obviously, Miss Julia is not a matriarch in charge of a matrifocal household; the absence of adult males to direct and participate in household operations is not permanent and is occupationally-related, and belies actual household functioning. It is my belief that in many societies where a remittance economy dominates, household structure may mistakenly be labeled matrifocal while in fact it approximates the kind of household and situation just exemplified. Quite clearly, for some household members--as in this example--continued residence after marriage in the parental home constitutes a temporary situation, merely a function of being at a dependent stage in life, which will hopefully be outgrown.

Household configurations that are neither the nuclear family type, nor what we might call the female-child cluster that arises from youthful dependency plus involvement in the merchant marine, are abundant and varied. For example, there is the incomplete nuclear family (household) due to being widowed, as in the case of Miss Samantha Bordeen. Miss Samantha (in her early 80s) has been widowed ten years but maintains her home with the assistance of daughter Frances. Frances, a spinster in her late 40s, has remained with her mother to keep house for the both of them. The other five children have long ago moved away to establish their own households (two of them remained in Utila) but they all keep in fairly close touch by mail or visits.
What might be called an augmented nuclear family also has representatives. In this type, an additional family member or members (either affinal or consanguineal) is present in the household beyond typical nuclear family individuals. The household of Homer Coppen and his wife Helen serves to illustrate this type, wherein Helen s sister "Terri" resides along with Homer, Helen and their daughters Virginia and Constance. Terri, in her late 20s, was a victim of polio as a child and is also mentally retarded. Too much for her widowed mother to take care of, Terri makes only occasional visits to her mother's home in the Cays. To the best of my knowledge, Homer supports Terri along with the rest of his dependents and receives no assistance from other sources, a fact that must cause a certain amount of hardship in the household since Homer is a pensioner with relatively small income (although he does have a small salary from clerking in his cousin's store).

Some households in Utila bear so little resemblance to a nuclear family that they might best be considered anomalous due to special kinds of problems. One example of this type consists in a brother and sister residing with their maternal grandmother. The children's father deserted them and their mother, and the mother has subsequently died. Without either father or mother present to care for the youngsters, their grandmother (herself widowed) has taken on the responsibility of raising them.

Finally, there are, I believe, examples of the so-called matrifocal family in Utila though my census data do not indicate exactly how many instances exist. A preliminary estimation is, however, that the phenomenon is restricted to Spaniards, lower class colored women (localized, more or less, in Sandy Bay barrio) and perhaps one instance in lower class white society. Women of the types just noted seem less scrupulous in their relationships with men, and conversely the men who associate with them are likely to provide little support or assume much responsibility for them or any children they might have. Whereas the other household types discussed here are "normal" in Utila, the matrifocal type is definitely atypical or "abnormal." My data do not indicate whether a matrifocal pattern has much antiquity in Utila, or whether it is a relatively recent phenomenon that arose when other elements of the population were becoming fairly well-to-do. To say that women in Utilian matrifocal households are impoverished, thereby suggesting the existence of a "culture of poverty" adaptation (cf. Lewis 1966), is premature. At most, it might be suggested that Spaniard and lower class colored values are more relaxed in terms of consensual unions and casual liaisons that do not bind males as tightly to women and families as is the case in other segments of Utilian society.

To conclude this section, it must be underscored that additional census material is needed before categorical statements on Utilian household types can be made. At this point, however, it appears that the 240 households in Utila fall into one of six types: nuclear, female-child cluster, incomplete nuclear, augmented nuclear, anomalous, and matrifocal. No exact percentages for each type could be projected over time since in the natural history of a family or group of people in contemporary Utila individuals can find themselves evolving to--and through--several of the types. At any given time a particular household of individuals must be viewed as a temporary arrangement. During the research period, however, it is estimated that 40-50% of Utilian households were of the nuclear type; and the balance of the population fell into one of the other patterns.

The presence of matrifocality in Utila is not readily explicable, as already noted, but put another way around is an equally interesting point--namely, the actual rarity of this household type. The relative absence of the phenomenon in Utila is perhaps due to the availability of relatively high-paying jobs for its men. This contrasts radically with the situations described for Guatemala, etc., where men simply are not important economic figures. Another significant factor, also economic at base, might be that the household in Utila is not primarily the unit of economic production and consumption. The household in Utila is fundamentally social rather than economic in its functions; it is the group that provides companionship for individuals and socialization of new members in the society, but though many households might have structural similarities to the matrifocal family the nuclear family is the essential production and consumption group.

5. Informal groups. In addition to more formal aspects of socialization in Utila, there are other, less structured, elements to the social system that are generated through mutual liking and compatibility between individuals. They are also generated in part for the purpose of pursuing a special activity or activities. Especially important activities are various types of recreation, and drinking is by far the most potent force for assembling an informal group--specifically of males.

In Chapter IV it was noted that during the months of September, October, November and December most of Utila's merchant mariners attempt to be home for a rest and recreation period. A cinema that operates erratically and a once-a-week, at most, dance are the only diversions outside of bars and drinking. Men are therefore in a sense propelled into beer drinking and its attendant activities (card playing, listening to a juke box, conversing) while on leave. Almost invariably, drinking, etc., takes place with one or more companions, and Utilian men spend a great deal of money in the friendship groups generated around drinking. Typically, a group of men who drink together in a bar will treat one another to rounds of drinks--turn-on-turn--which can go on for hours at a time. The structure of these groups is extremely loose, and people can be easily brought into the groups or just as easily drop out of them. Joining is effected by being treated to a beer by one of the men already drinking and thus is not something actively undertaken by a man; i.e., one is invited into a circle of friends who were together beforehand. Dropping out is effected by a man simply leaving, usually with an announcement that he has to go home for a bath, a nap, a meal, or some other reasonable excuse for leaving, but with the idea that he will probably be back. In size, the drinking groups range from just two or three to as many as ten men, but the average size is around four or five. Even when groups grow as large as ten members there will be a distinct core to the group--perhaps the two or three men who got the group started on that occasion--who trade drinks. Late comers will not be treated, or treat, to the same degree as the core and may form secondary (satellite) groups of two or three who will tend to stand rounds more with one another than with the core group. Membership in these groups tends to be situational, happenstance, most of the time, but men will arrange with one another for a drinking session (a "spree") from time to time. Strangers, especially from the United States (as I well know from personal experience) are very welcome to the drinking group and will be singled out for solicitous attention beyond the friendly treatment--and care for one another's welfare--that ordinarily is part of drinking comportment.

The relevance of men's drinking groups to the total discussion of social organization and Utila's remittance economy lies in a complex and tightly interwoven set of behaviors and attitudes. To begin with, the major motivation to ship out is so that one can obtain money necessary for a good life in Utila. A good life consists not only in material goods and so-called creature comforts, but also in amiable people and relationships. Relaxing in the bars is part of the latter and is also an integral part of the actual work-leisure cycle. Thus, drinking is both a partial cause and an effect of the remittance system (drinking is something one does to demonstrate friendliness and comaraderie, while it is also a mechanism for relaxation or at least diversion), and drinking groups--since one does not drink alone--are an inherent part of drinking behavior in the island.

Put differently, in drinking groups one can clearly see some of the important aspects of being an island male (elaborated below). To the extent that males are essential to the remittance economy, but more especially the right kind of males (i.e., ones who will behave predictably in terms of Utila's value system which includes comradely drinking), these groupings are significant. Male status-role, however, goes beyond the rest-and-recreation character presented in bars; a fuller consideration of both male and female status-role is needed in order to appreciate the dynamics of Utila's remittance economy.

Since there are both social and psychological dimensions to the analysis of status-role, this section will attempt to integrate what Utilians themselves say that they do, and are, with behavior that my wife and I observed during the research period. Of especial help were John Sullivan (pseudonym), one the the few contemplative and introspective islanders; Eddie Rose, whose 80 years in Utila and penchant for observation--especially minutiae--gives him advantaged perspective of his fellow islanders; and Helen Coppen (also a pseudonym), one of the most skillful managers and organizers of things and people in Utila. These informants not only provided much of the basic material used here, but served as a double check against other informants' material.

The special design of Utila's social system, and the operation of its peculiar economic system, are fundamentally derived from two stereotyped and predictable sets of role behavior associated with ethnic and sexual statuses. Many of the stereotypes in both cases go back to the days before a remittance economy existed; others, however, derive from or have been amplified by the remittance system.

Ethnic group status-roles have already been covered to a large extent in the discussion of stratification where the relationship between these status-roles and the remittance economy is made: wealth provided by the merchant marine and remittances is a means by which some individuals may move up or down in the social hierarchy. Two propositions from that discussion particularly merit elaboration. As was pointed out, since attaining "the good life" (again my phrase) implies a certain amount of mobility within the society, it follows that the potential of movement is as important a motivation to behavior in Utila as the actual acquisition of the symbols of the good life. Further, this is doubtless one of the social features that keeps Utila from being depopulated through migration, i.e., the hope of achievement within Utilian society, and is thus part of Utilian sociocultural dynamic. Finally, the interesting possibility also, therefore, exists that people who are socially disadvantaged in Utila due to wealth have a vested interest in maintaining the stratification system as it is: they have the hope and expectation of working their way up within it. Conversely, people who are disadvantaged due to ethnicity per se have an interest in changing the system to better suit themselves. On the contemporary Utilian scene, therefore, Spaniards stand to profit from maintaining the status quo while colored people do not.

A case study that both illustrates and partially supports the foregoing points is the wedding shower that was given for Jane Perez (a pseudonym) just before her marriage. The shower, held at the Montenegro home (also a pseudonym), was attended by twenty to thirty guests, both males and females, who were friends of the bride and/or the Montenegros. Most of the guests were close in age to the bride and groom, i.e., late teenage or early twenties, and there were both married and single individuals in the group. No colored people attended, although Jane (who is categorically "white") and the Montenegros have colored friends. It is unknown whether any colored friends were even invited. Significantly, there were two Spaniards present, which is probably related to the fact that the Montenegros are considered marginal whites at this point. Mr. Montenegro had, as a youth, spent several years in Utila where his father was trying to establish a salt factory. Most of his adult life was subsequently spent in Guatemala where all three of his children were born. He had only recently returned to Utila and was renting a residence until he could buy property and build his retirement home. The Montenegros had the reputation throughout Utila of being somewhat less than successful, even foolish, in terms of handling their money. The rumored lack of fiscal responsibility, plus their mainland background (Mrs. Montenegro could not speak any English after being two years in Utila), made this family marginal according to the white Utilians. Perhaps in sympathy with their "paisanos" (countrymen), or even in defiance of Utilian values and norms, they invited Spaniards into their home. Inasmuch as there were no colored guests present, however, and since the Montenegro daughter, Evita (age fifteen), was "looking a boyfriend" exclusively from among the white boys in Utila, the family will probably be "white" very soon.

Prior to World War II it is quite clear that the status-role of all Spanish surname individuals in Utila was closer to that of whites, and together they could be distinguished from colored Utilians. A proof of this contention lies in the datum that all of the Spanish surname families or individuals in the island who became, and are now, categorically white, achieved that status-role before Utila moved to a remittance economy.

A comparison of pre- and post-remittance ethnic status-roles indicates that Utila evolved from basically a two strata society to a three strata society due to an initial bias built into the remittance system. English-speaking Utilians--colored or white--had definite advantage over Hondurans of Spanish heritage in gaining entrance to the merchant marine and/or migrating to the United States due to their language and cultural background. Prior to the Utilian commitment to a remittance economy, everyone in the island had virtually the same economic options (agricultural production, fishing, local shipping) and, perhaps for political or practical considerations, Spanish surname people had a similar status-role to whites at that time. In a very direct way, then, wealth from the remittance economy forged a significant portion of the status-role expectations and performance found in Utila today; but, as noted, advantages have shifted somewhat.