A stable family life and widely extended bonds of kinship provided the most effective source of personal security. Although family and kinship practices varied among the disparate ethnic groups, both Hispanic and Indian traditions placed great stress upon bonds of responsibility among kins. No other institution endured as the family had, and none commanded greater loyalty.

Kinship ties at all levels of Bolivian society remained so strong that those unrelated to one another often sought to establish bonds of ritual kinship through the set of relationships among a child, the child's parents, and his or her godparents, known as compadrazgo. In Hispanic and Indian traditions alike, persons related through compadrazgo-- called compadres--should manifest the highest regard and loyalty toward one another. Among Indians, in addition, sexual relations between compadres (and sometimes their relatives) were considered incestuous and strongly condemned. For many of the historically dominant whites, compadrazgo extended the bonds of kinship and formalized pre-existing ties of friendship. For Indians and cholos, compadrazgo described one of the few relations of trust with members of the dominant ethnic groups.