It physically inscribed the family as a permanent presence on the landscape. From at least 1200 BC, families in Mexico buried their dead beneath the floor of the house and its yard, so that the house compound literally was the place of the ancestors. Within that compound, multiple generations resided together, and multiple siblings shared house space. This point is difficult, because we tend to present the picture as if we could start the system at any point with an idealized couple who have children who marry and live in the compound with their offspring. Some of the Aztec sources present the same vision of an idealized origin.
Real life is messy.
At any point, given what we know about Aztec practices, a house may have harbored elderly siblings, their adult sons, sons' wives, and children, and younger, unmarried sons and daughters. Most adult daughters moved away to the house of their husband's parents, and some adult men gained privileges through service in war that took them completely out of the neighborhood. Other young adult men and women left their homes to serve in and reside at temples. Children of deceased relatives might be adopted or fostered in the home, and despite the preference for daughters to marry away, a couple with no male children might convince the man marrying a daughter to relocate to their home. All rights reserved.