There are only two families in the world, the Haves and the Have-Nots.

The line reduces social life to an economic binary: those who possess resources and those who do not. Read this way, it is a blunt observation about inequality—how wealth and deprivation can override other distinctions (rank, virtue, nationality) in determining power, security, and opportunity. It also carries an implicit critique: when society is organized around possession, moral and communal bonds are weakened, and people are sorted into winners and losers. Even if attributed to Cervantes, the sentiment aligns with themes common in early modern satire and picaresque literature, where material scarcity exposes hypocrisy and the fragility of honor-based hierarchies.