In chapter 24 of To Kill a Mockingbird we are given an insight into the workings of the Maycomb ladies' social sphere. Although Scout usually would have avoided social gatherings such as this one (hosted by her aunt), in this case she was unable to spend time with Jem and Dill so stayed indoors instead.
Scout overhears the women talking about the Mruna people at the start of the chapter and says that, according to Mrs. Merriweather,
"They put the women out in huts when their time came, whatever that was; they had no sense of family--I knew that'd distress Aunty--they subjected children to terrible ordeals when they were thirteen; they were crawling with yaws and eagworms, they chewed up and spat out the bark of a tree into a communal pot and then got drunk on it." 24.261
During this chapter Scout also is pulled into the gathering, where Mrs. Merriweather talks profusely of J. Grimes Everett, a missionary who is trying to convert the Mruna people to Christianity. Though it is not stated, the implication of this work is also that by converting them to a new religion, he intends to normalize them with white, Christian family structures and traditions.
Later on in Chapter 27 Scout reveals that she has learned more about the Mruna people:
"I learned more about the poor Mrunas' social life from listening to Mrs. Merriweather: they had so little sense of family that the whole tribe was one big family. A child had as many fathers as there were men in the community, as many mothers as there were women. J. Grimes Everett was doing his utmost to change this state of affairs, and desperately needed our prayers." 27.287
Both of these quotes show a very biased view of the Mruna family structure. The ladies of Maycomb are accustomed to judging everyone based on how well they fit into the white nuclear family life that they enjoy. These women expect people to fit into neat boxes, and when they do not, it is upsetting and viewed as a disgrace.
This is apparent in a more subtle way by the way they treat Scout in Chapter 24. They take indirect and direct stabs at the way that Scout dresses and acts, suggesting that she is not acting ladylike enough to fit their standards for how a little girl ought to act. This is the same sort of way they view the Mrunas, although they are able to be much harsher to this group since they are both distant (in Africa) and another race (so seen as inferior by the prejudiced white women).
The part of the Mruna family structure that seems to most upset the ladies is the fact that the Mrunas are clearly a communal society. White, Western society, and certainly American society, has tended to stick to nuclear families (post-industrialization), or, at the very least, a separation of families into separate houses. Particularly in a place like Maycomb, it is seen as unnatural to live as a family made up of multiple households.
However, the Mruna people live as one family in a beneficial way. By treating all children as their own, they are able to create a community bond that strengthens the ties between all of the people. While Mrs. Merriweather sees this as proof that they have no sense of family, it is merely a different family structure. Indeed, it could be said that the Mruna people have more of a sense of family than the women of Maycomb because they treat everyone as family rather than picking and choosing who is proper enough to be considered close. By extension, it also means that unlike the women of Maycomb, who move from their discussion of the Mrunas into a negative discussion of the Maycomb African American community, the Mruna people do not exclude a whole segment of their society as inferior or different. Instead they are one family. Because of this, the attitude of the women very purposefully shows the disconnect between what they think is important about family and what the Mruna consider most important.
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