Pachita Villagómez and her husband Faustino Peña; July 16, 1972.
The success of marriages is difficult to estimate. Most seem to result in stable unions, though few are without rather serious tensions. I have never seen Nati [Peña] and Vicente [Rendón] angry with each other, nor have Faustino and Pachita quarreled seriously, to the best of my knowledge (1948).
Although the view is impressionistic, I have often thought that in pottery-making families domestic relations run rather smoothly. Potting, more than any other occupation, requires the intimate, smoothly integrated, continuing cooperation of husband and wife, and of the older children as well, if the family's economic needs are to be met. Potter spouses spend much more time in each other's company than do those in farming and fishing families, and continuing friction would seriously jeopardize the productive process. Moreover, the quiet, sedentary nature of much of the work encourages talk and an interchange of ideas and feelings not possible in the other occupations. If pottery making does, in fact, encourage domestic bliss, it is an important compensation for the miserably low incomes that characterize most of these families (1967).
CONTINUE >
|
