Family
Ecuadorians place great importance on the family, both nuclear and extended. Unlike in much of the west, where the elderly are often placed in care facilities, elderly Ecuadorians will often live with one of their children. However, in recent years, the number of facilities to care for the elderly has grown significantly.
Godparents are also far more important in Ecuador than in other western countries, and they are expected to provide both financial and psychological support to their godchildren. Precisely for that reason, Ecuadorians with marital troubles will often ask their godparents for advice.
Families are formed in at least one of the following two ways: Civil Marriage (which is the legal form of formalizing a bond between a man and woman, which all married couples are required to undergo) and the Free Union (where a man and woman decide to form a family, without undergoing any official ceremony). The Ecuadorian Constitution accords the members of a Free Union family, the same rights and duties as any other legally constituted family.
There are many variations in family structure, as well as in the social and cultural structure in Ecuador, depending on the socioeconomic position in which people live. Generally, the upper classes adopt more American or European ways of life. This leads to great contrasts within the Ecuadorian people.
Read more about this topic: Ecuadorian Literature
Famous quotes containing the word family:
“It is as when a migrating army of mice girdles a forest of pines. The chopper fells trees from the same motive that the mouse gnaws them,—to get his living. You tell me that he has a more interesting family than the mouse. That is as it happens.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A family with the wrong members in control—that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“One banquet in a rich family could feed a poor man’s family for half a year.”
—Chinese proverb.