The Earl of Tennessee, as he's called because of his Southern accent, isn't exactly what you would call a family man. Although Esperanza naively assumes that all those women entering his apartment on a regular basis are his wives, in actual fact Earl lives the life of a single man, freely engaging in sexual relations with many different women.

Esperanza's not alone in her naivety; the whole neighborhood thinks that Earl's married. This is because most folks on Mango Street see the world through the prism of traditional family values. Their attachment to the old ways blinds them to the reality of what really goes on at Earl's apartment. There's also an element of hypocrisy at work here. If a woman were entertaining a steady stream of male callers at her apartment, then a whole different set of cultural assumptions would come into play.