In the 1990s, traditional Hispanic kinship patterns, common to most
of Latin America, continued to shape family life in Nicaragua. The
nuclear family forms the basis of family structure, but relationships
with the extended family and godparents are strong and influence many
aspects of Nicaraguan life. Because few other institutions in the
society have proved as stable and enduring, family and kinship play a
powerful role in the social, economic, and political relations of
Nicaraguans. Social prestige, economic ties, and political alignments
frequently follow kinship lines. Through the compadrazgo system (the set of relationships between a child’s
parents and his or her godparents), persons unrelated by blood or
marriage establish bonds of ritual kinship that are also important for
the individual in the society at large.

Nicaraguan institutions, from banks to political parties, have
traditionally been weak and more reflective of family loyalties and
personal ties than broader institutional goals and values. For several
decades prior to 1979, the Nicaraguan state was scarcely differentiated
from the Somoza family. Family ties played a diminished but still
critical role in the politics of the 1980s and early 1990s. The Roman
Catholic Church, which, until recently, had little or no presence in the
countryside, still does not touch the lives of most Nicaraguans. To
survive in a country whose history is replete with war, political
conflict, and economic upheaval, Nicaraguans turn to the one institution
they feel they can trust–the family. As a result, individuals are
judged on the basis of family reputations, careers are advanced through
family ties, and little stigma is attached to the use of institutional
position to advance the interests of relatives. For both men and women,
loyalty to blood kin is frequently stronger than those of marriage.