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Turning to the status-roles of men and women in Utila, it has already been established that women especially are crucial to the perpetuation of the sociocultural system. In all areas--economic, political, religious, social--women consistently demonstrate their importance and competence and their co-equal position with men in terms of decision making, garnering of esteem, and so on. As Helen Coppen commented once, "Things are 50-50; they have to be"; and Viola Moran, in the same vein, noted that, "People here are hard, especially the women [because of men going on the ships]." Women are enduring creatures, like their men and can do hard labor (which for them is a virtue admired by men and women alike) in the form of hand laundering, baking, and cooking meals without benefit of pre-processed foods.

Despite perceived equality, or at least complementarity, between men and women as far as women see it, there are many evidences that women have a secondary social position in relationship to men. Thus, while there are examples of women going off to visit relatives on the mainland or other of the Bay Islands while leaving their husbands at home, of women who operate their own shops, of women in public office or in charge of civic activities, there are as many examples of women taking a secondary position to men. One of the best examples of the situation being described is the wedding of Rose Aginuz during which she--as guest of honor--actually assumed the task of waitress for her father and the elder males present.

Many other situations, often having to do with home and domestic activity (such as child watching), show male social superiority. To my knowledge, no Utilian male would stay home with children so that his wife could have an evening out, for example, to go to a dance. The woman would either have to take her children along with her (which is frequently the case) or get someone--perhaps her mother--to watch them. The male, however, will spend the entire evening, night after night, at a bar with a drinking group without having any concern over such matters. Utilian women are not servile in their relations with men, however, far from it. The attitude conveyed by women vis à vis men is, in fact, more an attitude of indulgence, such as one might take toward a young child. To illustrate this point, and put the example of Rose Aginuz's wedding into better perspective, an incident occurring between the police chief, Hester Thompson, and one of the men home on leave is enlightening.

Sandy Fortunato (a pseudonym) had come to Utila for a visit after having been absent, in the United States with his parents, for more than a dozen years. Although he was a U.S. citizen, his background was Utilian (he had also taken up a typical island occupation by working on a shrimper), and he was received back into the community as an old friend and family member. He quickly fell into the pattern followed by most merchant mariners while home on leave, but aside from the heavy drinking and partying he developed a passion for fried chicken and was soon in trouble for chicken stealing. Having been fined, and warned once by the chief of police, he was caught a second time and again brought before her. Miss Hester lectured Sandy about stealing other people's chickens and then told him that when he got the craving for fried chicken again he should come over to her house and she would fix him one of her own flock rather than have him get into trouble.

Sandy was due to leave in a short time (as were a number of other men who had also had a hand in the chicken thievery), and the strategy adopted by Miss Hester--and many other women in a variety of situations--was to indulge (pamper?) the male for soon he would be gone, taking the chicken stealing problem with him.

Women accept a secondary position to men apparently in order to make their short stay at home enjoyable, acknowledging the fact that it is difficult for men to be away from home, friends, and good times. Men accept this female attitude and resultant behavior--demand it in a sense--as just compensation for the same rationale: women should attend to male needs and be grateful for the money they earn and the life style they thereby provide for them and the household.

Speaking now of the male qua male in Utila, he typically works hard for his living (as he will tell you in any bar room conversation) and is proud of the fact that he works hard since it proves his capacity for endurance both physically--in doing heavy labor--and emotionally since he must be away from home and loved ones for so much of the year. On the other hand, he does not prize manual labor per se, especially with the land, as is evidenced by the reluctance of men to farm in the island. As an adjunct of their "work ethic," recreation is also pursued with an eye to demonstrating hardihood and the capacity to endure: drinking bouts of several day's duration prove, in part, one's masculinity. During drinking sessions, however, one does not want to "get hot" (which to Utilians connotes being drunk beyond the point where the individual can take care of himself) since this is both unwise--one could get into a fight--and weak (i.e., is the opposite of enduring).

Hard work and hard play are traits long present in the Utilian male population and the results are obvious: on one hand is the abiding commitment to the merchant marine, on the other, to the "rest and recreation" mentality I noted above. The work commitment, a man will tell you, lets him obtain the things needed for a comfortable life, but even more fundamental than this is the ability to pay the bills and meet the responsibilities attendant upon living comfortably. The ability to pay, then, leads directly into the "rest and recreation" phenomenon: relaxation among Utilian males is high-cost due to the expense of alcohol; but being able to meet the cost is part of the relaxation, part of the satisfaction of drinking--and drinking groups, where one's ability to pay can be shown off in large scale generosity, are necessary to this facet of the male status-role.

The Utilian man is adventuresome, as demonstrated by the fact that he sails to all corners of the world, stops in strange ports, etc., and when home on leave is ready to try all sorts of mischief (e.g., chicken thieving). He is also ready to create a good deal of commotion short of fighting--which appears to be looked down upon even though no Utilian would back away from a fight--that usually means making a lot of noise with stereo, jukebox, fireworks, and so on. Nevertheless, he is basically a homebody and enjoys domesticity. Men are attracted back to Utila through the knowledge that there they will enjoy home and friends, and if women are involved--mothers, wives, lovers--indulgences (though this does not mean total irresponsibility). Men are more or less assured that the island home they left a few months--and even a few years--ago will be the same when they get back; women and retired men who are desirous of the status quo for economic and sentimental reasons (not to mention possible in-put from lower stratum elements) exert conserving force on Utilian culture so that the absentee male does not have massive changes confronting him every time he returns from shipping out.

The only exception to the preceding, i.e., males being homebodies due to the predictable security of the household situation, would be where a man had to face infidelity in his spouse or untrustworthiness in household members. Given the repeated and prolonged absences of Utilian males, it is not surprising that both infidelity and untrustworthiness occur; but despite male sentimentality (men readily weep or are morose over unrequited love and the like), the typical male response would be a rather matter-of-fact acceptance of these conditions as occupational hazards. (Rather early in my research I had several men tell me that "Utilian men are good at three things: going to sea, drinking, and screwing other men's wives." This line appears to be part of local folklore.) The number of unfaithful spouses is actually quite small--even less common than other forms of sexual impropriety, namely common law unions and fornication (with resultant illegitimate children), which are themselves relatively infrequent⁵.

The requisite adult female status-role of nurturer and conservator, is one that women apparently handle willingly from their earliest years. From childhood they are socialized into a "Susie Homemaker" personality that concentrates most of the female energy and interest in home and children. While still children themselves, female offspring are enlisted as child-watchers for any younger siblings, for incidental cousins, nephews, or whatever. They are utilized by mothers to go to the market (from an age when they cannot even see over the top of store counters) and to lend a hand in cleaning and cooking in the home. They are early geared to look for romantic love with men, an orientation reinforced by radio serials such as "Portia Faces Life" received from Radio Belize (British Honduras) and television "novelas" that are received from Tegucigalpa in half-an-hour segments two or three evenings a week. The local laundromat has several examples of romantic art drawn by Utilian girls: "Jim, I Love You To My Heart," and similar phrases. From approximately age fourteen (school-leaving age) until a woman marries, she is "looking a boyfriend," which is to say that she is receptive to serious overtures from males. Dating situations are, admittedly, few; but the weekly cinemas offer some opportunities as do church gatherings.

The female version of adventuresomeness, perhaps to counterbalance the male experience incurred by going on the ships, comes from going to the United States for a short, usually two or three month, visit to relatives or friends. As Laura Cooper (keeper of the laundromat) once told me, "I want to go North for my tour, and then come back to settle down." What Laura was saying, in effect, was that once she had experienced female adventure she was prepared to act out the typical Utilian female status-role of mother-wife, etc. Laura is very much like most nineteen-year-old women in the island: in love with love (my phrase). Once she has seen the outside world (New Orleans) that is enough, and beyond that she is ready for her own household.

Utilian females tend to dote on children, especially babies (and male offspring of whatever age); yet despite the penchant to want children of their own, family size is small. Census data indicate that the average family in Utila has only two or three children, which is somewhat ironic for a number of reasons. First of all, one demonstration of maleness in Utila is fathering children, being a real "gallo" (rooster). Likewise, a number of children are an economic asset (they can help in one's store or in one's coconut plantation or run on the ships or work in the United States) and are a veritable source of retirement security. Secondly, children are a source of companionship that is extremely important to Utilians especially the women. Perhaps as a function of men being absent so much, perhaps simply out of fondness for children as persons in their own right, women like to have offspring around them. Helen Coppen epitomized this point in her response to my questions about ideal family size--whether she, speaking on behalf of Utilians, would have liked more children (she has two daughters, one of whom is still at home, the other an airline stewardess with SAHSA airline): "I wish I had had two more children [to make the ideal of four in a family] because I don't want to be all alone when I get older." The implication was that this desire for three or four children was the norm.

Small family size is doubtless the result of relatively high infant mortality (of the 563 deaths recorded between 1900 and 1974, fully a third were children ten years of age or younger) which relates to a Utilian trait that is impossible to ignore, namely a concern with health and doctoring that--as noted in Chapter IV--consumed a third of all money ever loaned by the Credit Union. The avidity with which doctors are sought out may well have a recreational aspect to it (since people have to go to the mainland for medical care), but at the least it should also demonstrate their concern for their children's and their own well-being--which may also account for several Utilians since the turn of the century living past the age of 100.

Additional descriptive material regarding men and women in Utilian life could certainly be provided in this discussion, but points crucial to the study have been made. In sum, male and female status-roles in Utila today, like ethnic ones, are to a great extent connected to the economic system found in the island. Prior to the remittance economy, women and men were certainly complementary to one another, just as today. With the men resident in the island most of the time, however, and household structures having males present most of the time, the distinction between a man's occupations and privileges and a woman's were much clearer than at present when women so often must take over for men. More importantly, differences of opinion and various kinds of conflict could not previously be ignored in the expectation that they would disappear with male departures. Women in earlier years appear to have been considered genuinely inferior to men in all respects; men were frequently condescending and supercilious towards them (cf. Rose 1905:24 et passim). Male and female status-roles in Utila would have been excellently preadapted for the type of living conditions eventually demanded by the remittance system, but there has been a change for women in the direction of greater independence, and for men a qualitative shift in the attitude that what they do while home in Utila is a direct function of hardships in the merchant mariner's life; previously the latter legitimization did not exist and was not, perhaps, even necessary; i.e., a man did what he wanted simply because he was a man.

Analysis

Enmeshed in the discussion of social organization are major points concerning stratification in Utila and the maintenance of the remittance system. Put succinctly, both the socially advantaged and the socially disadvantaged have a vested interest in the system of stratification since it serves on one hand as an aspect of Utilian life that--given an Image of Limited Good carried over from the Coconut Oil years--must be preserved by continuing (white) participation in the remittance economy. On the other hand, in that stratification embodies all of the elements of the good life, mobility within strata serves as a goal to be attained--or overcome--especially by the colored population. In large measure, the importance of the stratification system is historically determined through its linkage to land tenure in the island and the recent experience of economic crisis, all of which revolve around the initial orientation toward individualism.

During Utila's earliest years--perhaps for two generations after settlement--the smallness of its population, its few non-kin relationships, and all-white composition gave the island a semblance of extended family structure and function. When colored and Spanish arrivals increased the population in absolute numbers, and when these newcomers dehomogenized the population, Utila's white population became a kind of cartel.

Resources were initially abundant, and there were few inhibitions to everyone enjoying the good life: an image of limited good was not greatly in evidence. The coming of colored and Spanish surname immigrants to Utila coincided with the Fruit Boom, and though parameters for social strata were loosely laid out at the time, the system was still open. As the market for Utila's tropical fruit disappeared, circa 1900 and was followed by the world-wide depression, there was concomitant economic deprivation and emergence of the image of limited good: opportunities for the good life disappeared.

Utila's Coconut Oil Years experience was one of extreme hardship for all islanders irrespective of social stratum, kind and quantity of land owned, etc. Emigration, which siphoned off hundreds of islanders, did nothing to help Utila's local situation. Those people who remained had little of the good life, and what little they had they obviously intended to keep. This they could do by totally closing the social system to any mobility between strata and by keeping political power and authority where it then resided. These sociocultural developments were the matrix for Utila's remittance economy that developed in the aftermath of World War II.

As in the discussion of social stratification, hypotheses concerning the remittance economy can be developed from descriptive data on status-role. First, women more than men have a vested interest in perpetuating the remittance economy. Women have, increasingly, been decision-makers and managers in the absence of males, but since these decisions are usually not major (e.g., whether or not the household should emigrate or the like), they have a relatively greater amount of freedom (at least from their husbands if not from society at large) without concomitant responsibilities. If a woman truly needs the presence of a male (e.g., due to sickness) a man can be induced to remain in Utila beyond the normal two to three month leave or he can take emergency leave from his ship. In other words, in circumstances considered by a woman to warrant it, she can manipulate the presence or absence of a male regardless of his usual work cycle of nine months on and three months off.

Day-to-day tasks of women are made easier through amenities provided by remittances. A woman can, in effect, manipulate remittance expenditures in her favor (i.e., so that her work load will be eased, her leisure time increased, and so on) simply by resort to traditional values: a woman can, for example, appeal to a man's desire to appear successful and generous in order to get a new electric refrigerator. If she gets bored with the island surroundings or its relative isolation she can use remittance monies to take children to the doctor in La Ceiba, a legitimate expenditure according to traditional values. Or, she could go north to the United States for a visit with other islanders, also recognized as legitimate in the value system (to maintain family ties, to assist at the time of childbirth, to do shopping for desired things not available in Utila or Honduras, etc). Such visits are themselves beneficial to maintaining the remittance system since they enable comparison between Utila and other places; comparison usually favors Utila as having a slower pace of life. Likewise, visits expose women to still other amenities that remittance monies can be used for.

The commitment of women to the remittance economy is doubly demonstrated through the responses of children to questions about their life goals. A sample of fifteen little boys and girls under age 12, when questioned about their objectives in life, indicated that they intended to go to sea (if male) or stay home to care for house and family (if female). Socialization of the next generation of Utilians, primarily in the hands of women, has already established that Utila will (all other things being equal) have a remittance economy for a long time to come.

A second hypothesis stemming from status-role discussion is that the prospect of retirement--rewards in the future rather than in the present--is what encourages continued male participation in the remittance economy. Unlike women, men do not derive optimum satisfaction from their remittance economy while still actively involved in it. Men, in contrast to women, invariably talk about goals toward which they are working and with which they can--in retirement--be happy and content. Women enjoy the fruits of the remittance system by increments; men anticipate enjoyment, more or less, as a kind of lump-sum phenomenon. The "rest and recreation" atmosphere of the community is, in the interim, a male device for coping with the retirement goal orientation. Permissiveness of male behavior and indulgence of male whims serve as intermittent rewards for men prior to attaining retirement. Males, then, are not anxious to see changes on the contemporary scene: their prospects for enjoyment are posited in a no-change culture. In order to ensure stasis, i.e., to protect their investment in the projected retirement, there is a built-in inducement beyond personal attachments to keep men coming home (rather than emigrating, perhaps, as they did in an earlier era) yet periodically shipping out in order to eventually build the good life.
Male future orientation and female present orientation are largely responsible, as the final hypothesis, for Utila's persistence in the remittance system. Though the male and female orientations are different, they complement one another in keeping Utila from any prospect of local economic self-sufficiency. Women want consumer items that they can use and enjoy in the here and now. Men, however desirous of saving for retirement they might be, must also satisfy wives (perhaps compensate them for male absence) and therefore engage in consumerism. The "rest and recreation mentality" of men plus their own penchant for consumerism does the rest to guarantee economic dependency on the merchant marine. Lack of investment in local ventures (empirically, there are, in fact, few things in which to invest), and the relatively small savings accumulated in the bank and Credit Union (see Chapter IV) attest to what is obvious to any observer: Utilian consume most of what they earn. That they do consume rather than invest has kept the island in a dependent status; and the prospects, given the lack of in-island opportunities, are that this situation will not change. Economic dependency and its relationship to the remittance economy will be dealt with still more fully in Chapter VI.

CHAPTER VI

REMITTANCE SYSTEM INTERRELATIONSHIPS: POLITICAL ORGANIZATION

The aim of this study has been to examine the interface between the economic and non-economic aspects of Utila's overall sociocultural system. From that examination we may better understand what conditions and institutions are actually preadapted to a remittance economy, and beyond that the dynamics between preadaptation and subsequent accommodation. In the example of Utila we may also better understand the nature of the accommodations themselves. Chapter V describes a major component of that interface, but the social arrangement of Utila's personnel obviously entails more than stratification patterns, particular status-roles, and the other phenomena discussed in connection with these.

We are told (e.g., by Bennett and Tumin 1964) that all sociocultural systems must provide for the maintenance of internal and external order; i.e., there must be some way whereby "politics" is effected. Following Fried (1967:20-21):

Political organization comprises those portions of social organization that specifically relate to the individuals or groups that manage the affairs of public policy or seek to control the appointment or action of those individuals or groups.
In the case of Utila, there are two levels at which political organization operates: the local level as such, focusing on the internal affairs of the island, and the level of national government that binds Utila to the Honduran state.

The pages that follow will direct attention first of all to the local level of Utilian political organization. From that emerges a model of what could be called orthodox anarchy: a basically conformist and conservative population that maintains the status quo in an atmosphere of individual and household autonomy and therefore without intracommunity cooperation.

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