A house to house survey of 917 households in and around the mountain commune of Kenscoff, made during a year of residence in 1956 and 1957, supports this study of how peasant families are actually put together. Comhaire-Sylvain sorts households into five types and finds the nuclear family dominant, its share rising with distance from the bourg, from 47 per cent in the town to 74 per cent in the region of Furcy. The older laku, a compound of dwellings under a father, elder brother or uncle who held the land and settled marriages, survives in remote districts and has thinned near the motor road opened to Port-au-Prince in 1932. Much of the article concerns the gap between the civil code and local custom. Plasaj unions carry no legal standing, yet at inheritance, widowhood and the placing of orphaned children, custom usually prevails and public opinion enforces it.