When the government places restrictions on the Catholic church's autonomy, an armed uprising takes place. Disagreements over the new laws create conflict within the protagonist's family.
Suspicious husband deals with wife's supposed infidelity by making his toddler son disappear into the city's slums, where he grows to boyhood as a thief's apprentice.
Woman and her daughter try to get on with their lives and run their family bakery while dealing with abusive alcoholic husband/father and other family problems.
Singer relives her love-life in flashback: she adopts another woman's illegitimate daughter, she gets married, the grandparents of the baby raise a fuss, etc.
Good son takes the blame for father's peculations and goes off to work in the rain forest to pay off Pops' debt. Meanwhile, daughter and bad son neglect their aging parents, whose fortunes decline precipitously.
When he hears how his grandfather left illegitimate children scattered all over the county, a young landowner is seized with an obsessive desire to make babies.
