Ten percent to twenty-five percent of the unions in the slum were common-law marriages, temporary cohabitation, and liaisons that lasted for two to ten years. Such kinship was labeled broken and immoral, and the home environment deemed unhealthy and a danger to society. Women assumed the duties of men, and men were dependent on the wages of their sisters, mothers, and wives to support families. Men searching for work left partners and children behind, started new families elsewhere, and acted as substitutes for other men gone missing. Perhaps an aunt or lover or lodger did the same for him,
...more
