Conflict Resolution in Two Mexican Communities1

Abstract

IN DEALING with law, anthropologists have often limited themselves to an analysis of certain institutionalized forms of legal systems, such as councils, courts, duels, and go-betweens. Characteristically, such agents or agencies of conflict resolution claim our attention because they are most easily discernible as core portions of legal systems in variety of societies. However, when anthropologists begin to concern themselves with the problem of explaining interor intrasocietal variation in the law, they necessarily include in their description of a legal system broader range of social control forms than those mentioned above, as well as certain variables that are crucial to functional explanation of different forms of social control (Malinowski 1932; Whiting 1950; Schneider 1957; Harper 1957). The present paper discusses conflict resolution in two Mexican towns by exploring two central questions: (1) are conflicts resolved differently in the two towns because authority is allocated differently; that is, to what extent does the distribution of authority coincide with the distribution of conflict resolution, and (2) what factors explain the differential distribution of authority in these towns? Our approach is to investigate alternative strategies employed by husbands and wives in resolving conflicts which occur between them. In addition, we discuss implications of these alternative strategies and offer reconstruction of the development of authority patterns in these communities. We do this in order to understand the degree of correspondence between authority patterns and the role of remedy agent.