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farmers in many parts of China prefer agricultural land not to be privately owned. In fact, they prefer it to be periodically reallocated between neighbouring families, giving land free of charge to households that have grown in membership and taking land from families that have shrunk. Why is there such a preference for land reallocations among China’s farmers? Let us examine the first of these sets of practices. Is the division of a farm family’s property at the time of each son’s marriage a “new born” custom? And traditionally, did rural parents most often live together with the youngest son after his marriage, not with the eldest son? When I asked interviewees in villages in a number of Chinese provinces about this, most insisted that in traditional times it had been the eldest son who, after his marriage, had normally stayed on with the parents until they passed away: that this had been in accord with Confucian teachings of giving precedence to the eldest son. And when I examined books that provide an overall view of pre-revolution family life, a similar generalization cropped up. Lloyd Eastman, for instance, in his book Family, Field and Ancestors wrote that “It was customary... for just the eldest son to continue to reside in the family home and look after the aging parents: younger sons had to move out soon after they took a wife” But if we look instead at studies of specific pre-revolution Chinese villages, it becomes evident that, in fact, village households most frequently followed the opposite course. The practices today are the same as the range of preferences that are found in the studies about pre-revolution villages and Taiwanese villages. My visits to villages in a number of provinces in China revealed that parents who live in stem families with one of their sons most frequently live with the younger son, or alternatively live entirely independently, or live or eat with each married son in turn. Other recent researchers in Chinese villages have found similar living arrangements (e.g., Wang 2004; Jing 2004; Zhang 2004). What is different today is that the division of the paternal household, including its land and other property, most often takes place at the point of marriage. In pre-revolution times, most rural households apparently did not split into separate families by dividing their assets at the first point of a son’s marriage. Rather, the household often held together as a single economic and social unit for some years after the eldest son’s wedding (see, e.g., Harrell 1982: 159–170; Cohen 1970, 1976). Households sometimes remained intact until the younger sons themselves married and the separate conjugal interests of the brothers and their wives began eroding the household’s unity. Why, then, today do the elder sons most frequently split off from their paternal family at the point of their wedding? Certainly, the shift arose within the collective period, as is evident from a number of studies of Chinese villages (e.g., Chan, Madsen and Unger 1992:194; Parish and Whyte 1978: 220; Selden 1993: 145). Before the revolution, when the family had productive assets including land, the drawbacks of cutting the family property into smaller portions had provided a disincentive to split up the household immediately. But under the collectives there was no longer land or a household economy to hold a family together. Instead, the main source of income was in work points, earned by each individual, and thus the economic deterrent to dividing the household had disappeared."<ref>FAMILY CUSTOMS AND FARMLAND REALLOCATIONS IN CONTEMPORARY CHINESE VILLAGES* Jonathan Unger http://ips.cap.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/IPS/PSC/CCC/publications/papers/JU_Family_Customs.pdf</ref>
However, some studies have found that coresiding with the eldest son and his family is prevalent even today.<ref>Sons and Daughters:Adult Children’s Care for Elderly Parents at the End of Life in Rural China Dongmei Zuo Shuzhuo Li http://www.iussp.org/sites/default/files/event_call_for_papers/Children's%20care%20for%20elderly%20parents%20at%20the%20end%20of%20life-final.pdf</ref><ref>Intergenerational Transfers and Living Arrangements of Older People in Rural China: Consequences for Psychological Well-Being. Source: Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences & Social Sciences . Sep2006, Vol. 61B Issue 5, pS256-S266. 11p. 4 Charts. Author(s): Silverstein, Merril; Zhen Cong; Shuzhuo Li http://web.ebscohost.com/abstract?direct=true&profile=ehost&scope=site&authtype=crawler&jrnl=10795014&AN=22485838&h=RGGhx3EIa0np6EjXtAw8aiotiEZK5SVOFKNNIofPhXjYFz%2btMK0xxK8QHC73zZJZYJ8KsYDMyxzPfUU8mQFxtw%3d%3d&crl=f</ref><ref>Living Arrangements of Older Adults in China: The Interplay Among Preferences, Realities, and Health Melanie Dawn Sereny Department of Sociology Duke University May 26, 2009 http://www.unfpa.org/webdav/site/global/groups/events_calendar/public/Doha/Sereny_Concordance_Paper.pdf</ref> Shangyi Mao and Brett Graham, in their study "The Residential Choice of Siblings in China", using data from general surveys, concluded that the birth order of sons and daughters didn't influence coresidence with parents. Only children and sons were more likely to coreside with parents than daughters and children with siblings, but the order of birth between children of the same sex didn't influence coresidence with parents.<ref>The Residential Choice of Siblings in China Shangyi Mao Brett Graham http://paa2013.princeton.edu/papers/132664</ref> However, a recent study
According to [[Meyer Fortes]], "it is the firstborn who establishes the relationship of filiation once for all in respect of his parents' field of kinship and it is he (or she) who frequently carries the responsibility of representing te whole of his co-filiate sibling group in jural and ritual contexts. It is he who is likely to be principal heir and successor to his father in patrilineal, to a mother's brother in matrilineal, systems and it is upon him therefore that both the continuity and solidarity, and the cleavage and rivalry, between successive generations are apt to be focused".<ref>Kinship and the Social Order : the Legacy of Lewis Henry Morgan Escrito por Meyer Fortes http://books.google.es/books?id=iCjWC0nYA_4C&pg=PA253&lpg=PA253&dq=%22Fortes%22+%22firstborn%22&source=bl&ots=lDS031Wu08&sig=ri8pW3hpZenSV1JPPN_1WWJmx-E&hl=es&sa=X&ei=pEGkUo2jK-Kt0QWnz4DgCA&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Fortes%22%20%22firstborn%22&f=false</ref> "The distinction is made explicit and the first born is thus set apart in almost every aspect of social organization, firstly as creator of parenthood, secondly as founder of the filial generation, thirdly as head of the sibling group thus constituted. In the ___domain of law and politics, he may be the designated heir, by primogeniture, as among Tallensi, Mossi, Tikopia, Hindu, Chinese, and other patrilineal peoples of antiquity as well as of today".<ref>Religion, Morality and the Person: Essays on Tallensi Religion Escrito por Meyer Fortes http://books.google.es/books?id=uJg4AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA231&lpg=PA231&dq=%22Fortes%22+%22domain%22+%22politics%22+%22primogeniture%22&source=bl&ots=352K51s6yV&sig=tTkdJVdjFg0lz2EwMy8ANWyxXM8&hl=es&sa=X&ei=B0akUvK7Oaqj0QWYtIH4CA&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Fortes%22%20%22domain%22%20%22politics%22%20%22primogeniture%22&f=false</ref> He wrote extensively about the firstborn in his article "The firstborn".<ref>THE FIRST BORN Meyer Fortes http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1974.tb01228.x/abstract</ref>
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