Five words for a Haitian union and one of them means married

Haitian censuses and surveys had counted women as married, divorced, widowed, separated or single, with placage sometimes added as a sixth box. That grid missed the commonest arrangement in the country, which is a regular sexual relationship without shared housing. For the fertility surveys of 1977 a different classification was built after long pretesting and discussion with Haitian and foreign anthropologists, doctors and linguists. Any woman who had had regular sexual relations for about three months counted as having been in a union. Five types were named. Rinmin involves no shared house, no economic support and a slight tie, and often leads on to placage. Fiyanse is its equivalent among people of higher standing. Viv avek translates as to live with, though in practice the couple usually do not. Plase generally means a shared house and real support. Marye means legal marriage. Two thirds of the women interviewed had begun in a rinmin union and six per cent in a marriage.