Family life and the shifting social boundaries in the eighteenth century in New Spain

Abstract

From a vision covering the 18th century in New Spain, this article questions the elements that have been this article questions the elements that have been taken as determining as determinants to identify the different social categories that existed in the social categories that existed in the American colony. The author points out that far from constituting a ‘true caste society’, the New Spanish colonial the colonial population of New Spain assimilated the mixtures, mitigated the contrasts and, unlike contrasts and, contrary to what has been considered, its criteria for defining social groups was criteria for defining social groups was rather imprecise. imprecise.