As a people, the Aztecs have a dynamic social system and these social classes shall now be discussed in this paper. This paper will describe and discuss the social classes of the Aztec civilization in order to arrive at a more academic and specific understanding of the Aztecs and in order to further comprehend the social workings of ancient civilizations.
In general, the Aztec civilization was classified into different social groupings. The emperor was at the very top of these classes and beneath him were the nobles and the priests (Lambert, n.d). After the nobles and priests were the merchants, craftsmen, and the peasants, at the very bottom of these social groupings were the slaves (Lambert, n.d). In this society, the merchants were considered to have a class of their own and they were known to inhabit their own areas in the cities where their children often ended up marrying the children of fellow merchants (Lambert, n.d). Merchants who had to travel long distances to trade their wares were called pochteca. The slaves in Aztec society were those who committed crimes and were later sentenced to slavery; and others were poor people who were forced to sell themselves into slavery (Lambert, n.d). These slaves still had some inherent rights – they could marry or buy their own property and their children were considered free men (Lambert, n.d).
The foundation of most societies is the family. This is also the same for the Aztecs where the family unit is considered a very important part of their society. Such family unit consists of the parents and their unmarried children (Oracle, n.d). The members of the family support each other and each member is nurtured and is taught basic survival functions. In many cases, these families often grow to extended proportions to include the married children and their children. These extended families are often called upon to