Godparents and Social Networks in Tzintzuntzan

Quantitative baptismal data (N=944) are used to explore the strategy of building social networks via compadrazgo ties. Godparents of a couple's children most frequently are of the same social status as the parents (75%), friends rather than relatives (67%), village neighbors rather than outsiders (87%). Choice of friends versus relatives as godparents varies with birth order of children within families: early children are more likely than later children to have family friends rather than relatives as godparents. This pattern is explained by a family developmental cycle hypothesis, which postulates that new couples, especially if still living with the parents of husband or wife, wish to expand their social networks rapidly beyond family boundaries, but that when optimum network size is approached, double loading of kinship ties with new compadrazgo ties reduces expenses and obligations by slowing network expansion.