After marriage, a Tarahumara couple tends to reside with the bride's parents for a few years before setting up a separate household. Bilateral marriage restrictions prohibit marriage between collateral kin of the first degree of relationship as well as between lineal relatives. Few marry non-Tarahumara. Sororate and levirate arrangements are reported, but these are preferential rather than prescriptive patterns. Polygyny is practiced.
Divorce is frequent and involves little formality.
While the bilateral kin group is important in mutual aid, the Tarahumara are not organized into formal kin groups above the family level. The pueblos, which average about fifteen miles in radius, are the basic territorial units in the society. Kennedy says that the pueblo is the largest entity to which the Tarahumara feel any allegiance. There are no social mechanisms integrating the Tarahumara as a whole. Each pueblo contains a center, composed of a church and, usually, a comunidad, or combined courthouse and jail.