From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/Brazilians/Robert W. Shirley
Specialists in Brazilian culture agree that the family is the most important institution in the country. It extends beyond the nuclear family to the parentela, the great network of relatives by blood and marriage that makes up the kinship group for most people. Sometimes loosely known as “clans,” these groups dominate politics and the economy in much of rural Brazil, even in the developed regions of the southeast. Even though members of a family fight among themselves, few try to survive without its support. The bonds of kin and community have had important effects on Brazilian immigration patterns, often working against permanent resettlement. Brazilians almost always maintain social and sometimes economic ties with kin in the homeland. For this reason, much Brazilian immigration is considered temporary, for only as long as is necessary to accumulate the capital to establish oneself in the home town.
Marriage is a solemn ritual for many Brazilians, especially practising Catholics and Protestants, and the landed aristocracy. Divorce was illegal until recently. Consensual union is a long-established tradition. Brazilian men often display the characteristic Latin machismo, but in a less overt form, and women are probably more respected than in any other country in Latin America with the possible exception of Mexico and Cuba. These cultural patterns have had an impact on immigration. Marriage with Canadians has been one of the principal ways that the Brazilian community has become established in Canada, first through the marriage of women from elite Brazilian families to Canadian businessmen and more recently through that of male immigrants to Canadian women. Hypergamy, rather than endogamy, is valued, and marriage to a foreigner has always had great prestige in Brazil. New immigrants have been able to create transnational family organizations by building parentelas in the two countries and thus to bring close relatives to Canada. These families tend to be urban, religious, modern, and sophisticated, reflecting their middle-class origins in Brazil.
