Article Both Husbands and Banda (Gang) Members

Abstract

In this article, I suggest a novel approach to the conceptualization of marital conflict and instability among rural migrants in Mexican cities. In previous studies, authors have attributed conjugal strife to men’s efforts to express their independence and dominate their wives. Using ethnographic data collected among a specific category of young migrants in Mexico City, I posit that their marital dynamics as well as husbands’attempts at domination can be better understood by employing a unit of analysis that extends beyond the household itself to include husbands’ relationships to other men in groups they call bandas (gangs). In the banda, men try to obligate each other to spend time and resources that could otherwise be directed toward conjugal relationships. When wives make demands on the same limited resources and husbands refuse, making claims to a dominant and independent masculinity, they are responding to, while also obscuring, their obligations to other men.